The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians Part 21

MYCERINUS.(433) He was the son of Cheops, but of a character opposite to that of his father. So far from walking in his steps, he detested his conduct, and pursued quite different measures. He again opened the temples of the G.o.ds, restored the sacrifices, did all that lay in his power to comfort his subjects, and make them forget their past miseries; and believed himself set over them for no other purpose but to exercise justice, and to make them taste all the blessings of an equitable and peaceful administration. He heard their complaints, dried their tears, alleviated their misery, and thought himself not so much the master as the father of his people. This procured him the love of them all. Egypt resounded with his praises, and his name commanded veneration in all places.

One would naturally conclude, that so prudent and humane a conduct must have drawn down on Mycerinus the protection of the G.o.ds. But it happened far otherwise. His misfortunes began from the death of a darling and only daughter, in whom his whole felicity consisted. He ordered extraordinary honours to be paid to her memory, which were still continued in Herodotus's time. This historian informs us, that in the city of Sas, exquisite odours were burnt, in the day-time, at the tomb of this princess; and that during the night, a lamp was kept constantly burning.

He was told by an oracle, that his reign would continue but seven years.

And as he complained of this to the G.o.ds, and inquired the reason why so long and prosperous a reign had been granted to his father and uncle, who were equally cruel and impious, whilst his own, which he had endeavoured so carefully to render as equitable and mild as it was possible for him to do, should be so short and unhappy; he was answered, that these were the very causes of it, it being the will of the G.o.ds, to oppress and afflict Egypt during the s.p.a.ce of one hundred and fifty years, as a punishment for its crimes; and that his reign, which was to have been like those of the preceding monarchs, of fifty years' continuance, was shortened on account of his too great lenity. Mycerinus likewise built a pyramid, but much inferior in dimensions to that of his father.

ASYCHIS.(434) He enacted the law relating to loans, which forbade a son to borrow money, without giving the dead body of his father by way of security for it. The law added, that in case the son took no care to redeem his father's body by restoring the loan, both himself and his children should be deprived for ever of the rights of sepulture.

He valued himself for having surpa.s.sed all his predecessors, by the building a pyramid of brick, more magnificent, if this king was to be credited, than any hitherto seen. The following inscription, by its founder's order, was engraved upon it. COMPARE ME NOT WITH PYRAMIDS BUILT OF STONE; WHICH I AS MUCH EXCEL AS JUPITER DOES ALL THE OTHER G.o.dS.(435)

If we suppose the six preceding reigns (the exact duration of some of which is not fixed by Herodotus) to comprise one hundred and seventy years, there will remain an interval of near three hundred years, to the reign of Sabachus the Ethiopian. In this interval, I place a few circ.u.mstances related in Holy Scripture.

(M80) PHARAOH, king of Egypt, gave his daughter in marriage to Solomon king of Israel; who received her in that part of Jerusalem called the city of David, till he had built her a palace.(436)

SESACH or Shishak, otherwise called Sesonchis. (M81) It was to him that Jeroboam fled, to avoid the wrath of Solomon, who intended to kill him.(437) He abode in Egypt till Solomon's death, and then returned to Jerusalem, when, putting himself at the head of the rebels, he won from Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, ten tribes, over whom he declared himself king.

(M82) This Sesach, in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam, marched against Jerusalem, because the Jews had transgressed against the Lord. He came with twelve hundred chariots of war, and sixty thousand horse.(438) He had brought numberless mult.i.tudes of people, who were all Libyans,(439) Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. He made himself master of all the strongest cities of Judah, and advanced as far as Jerusalem. Then the king, and the princes of Israel, having humbled themselves, and implored the protection of the G.o.d of Israel; G.o.d told them, by his prophet Shemaiah, that, because they humbled themselves, he would not utterly destroy them as they had deserved; but that they should be the servants of Sesach: in order "that they might know the difference of his service, and the service of the kingdoms of the country."(440) Sesach retired from Jerusalem, after having plundered the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house; he carried off every thing with him, "and even also the three hundred shields of gold which Solomon had made."

(M83) ZERAH, king of Ethiopia, and doubtless of Egypt at the same time, made war upon Asa king of Judah.(441) His army consisted of a million of men, and three hundred chariots of war. Asa marched against him, and drawing up his army in order of battle, in full reliance on the G.o.d whom he served: "Lord," says he, "it is nothing for thee to help whether with many, or with them that have no power. Help us, O Lord our G.o.d, for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this mult.i.tude; O Lord, thou art our G.o.d, let not man prevail against thee." A prayer offered up with such strong faith was heard. G.o.d struck the Ethiopians with terror; they fled, and all were irrevocably defeated, being "destroyed before the Lord, and before his host."

ANYSIS.(442) He was blind, and under his reign SABACHUS, king of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of it. He reigned with great clemency and justice.

Instead of putting to death such criminals as had been sentenced to die by the judges, he made them repair the causeys, on which the respective cities to which they belonged were situated. He built several magnificent temples, and among the rest, one in the city of Bubastus, of which Herodotus gives a long and elegant description. After a reign of fifty years, which was the time appointed by the oracle, he retired voluntarily to his old kingdom of Ethiopia, and left the throne of Egypt to Anysis, who, during this time, had concealed himself in the fens.

(M84) It is believed that this Sabachus was the same with So, whose aid was implored by Hoshea, king of Israel, against Shalmanezer, king of a.s.syria.(443)

SETHON. He reigned fourteen years.

(M85) He is the same with Sevechus, the son of Sabacon, or So, the Ethiopian, who reigned so long over Egypt. This prince, so far from discharging the functions of a king, was ambitious of those of a priest; causing himself to be consecrated high-priest of Vulcan. Abandoning himself entirely to superst.i.tion, he neglected to defend his kingdom by force of arms; paying no regard to military men, from a firm persuasion that he should never have occasion for their a.s.sistance; he, therefore, was so far from endeavouring to gain their affections, that he deprived them of their privileges, and even dispossessed them of their revenues of such lands as his predecessors had given them.

He was soon made sensible of their resentment in a war that broke out suddenly, and from which he delivered himself solely by a miraculous protection, if Herodotus may be credited, who intermixes his account of this war with a great many fabulous particulars. Sanacharib (so Herodotus calls this prince) king of the Arabians and a.s.syrians, having entered Egypt with a numerous army, the Egyptian officers and soldiers refused to march against him. The high priest of Vulcan, being thus reduced to the greatest extremity, had recourse to his G.o.d, who bid him not despond, but march courageously against the enemy with the few soldiers he could raise.

Sethon obeyed. A small number of merchants, artificers, and others who were the dregs of the populace, joined him; and with this handful of men, he marched to Pelusium, where Sanacharib had pitched his camp. The night following, a prodigious mult.i.tude of rats entered the camp of the a.s.syrians, and gnawing to pieces all their bowstrings, and the thongs of their shields, rendered them incapable of making the least defence. Being disarmed in this manner, they were obliged to fly; and they retreated with the loss of a great part of their forces. Sethon, when he returned home, ordered a statue of himself to be set up in the temple of Vulcan, holding in his right hand a rat, and these words to be inscribed thereon:-LET THE MAN WHO BEHOLDS ME LEARN TO REVERENCE THE G.o.dS.(444)

It is very obvious that this story, as related here from Herodotus, is an alteration of that which is told in the second book of Kings. We there see,(445) that Sennacherib, king of the a.s.syrians, having subdued all the neighbouring nations, and made himself master of all the other cities of Judah, resolved to besiege Hezekiah in Jerusalem, his capital city. The ministers of this holy king, in spite of his opposition, and the remonstrances of the prophet Isaiah, who promised them, in G.o.d's name, a sure and certain protection, provided they would trust in him only, sent secretly to the Egyptians and Ethiopians for succour. Their armies, being united, marched to the relief of Jerusalem at the time appointed, and were met and vanquished by the a.s.syrian in a pitched battle. He pursued them into Egypt and entirely laid waste the country. At his return from thence, the very night before he was to have given a general a.s.sault to Jerusalem, which then seemed lost to all hopes, the destroying angel made dreadful havoc in the camp of the a.s.syrians; destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand men by fire and sword; and proved evidently, that they had great reason to rely, as Hezekiah had done, on the promise of the G.o.d of Israel.

This is the real fact. But as it was no ways honourable to the Egyptians, they endeavoured to turn it to their own advantage, by disguising and corrupting the circ.u.mstances of it. Nevertheless, the footsteps of this history, though so much defaced, ought yet to be highly valued, as coming from an historian of so great antiquity and authority as Herodotus.

The prophet Isaiah had foretold, at several times, that this expedition of the Egyptians, which had been concerted, seemingly, with such prudence, conducted with the greatest skill, and in which the forces of two powerful empires were united, in order to relieve the Jews, would not only be of no service to Jerusalem, but even destructive to Egypt itself, whose strongest cities would be taken, its territories plundered, and its inhabitants of all ages and s.e.xes led into captivity. See the 18th, 19th, 20th, 30th, 31st, &c. chapters of his prophecy.

Archbishop Usher and Dean Prideaux suppose that it was at this period that the ruin of the famous city No-Amon,(446) spoken of by the prophet Nahum, happened. That prophet says,(447) that "she was carried away-that her young children were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets-that the enemy cast lots for her honourable men, and that all her great men were bound in chains." He observes, that all these misfortunes befell that city, when Egypt and Ethiopia were her strength; which seems to refer clearly enough to the time of which we are here speaking, when Tharaca and Sethon had united their forces. However, this opinion is not without some difficulties, and is contradicted by some learned men. It is sufficient for me to have hinted it to the reader.

Till the reign of Sethon, the Egyptian priests computed three hundred and forty-one generations of men;(448) which make eleven thousand three hundred and forty years; allowing three generations to a hundred years.

They counted the like number of priests and kings. The latter, whether G.o.ds or men, had succeeded one another without interruption, under the name of Piromis, an Egyptian word signifying good and virtuous. The Egyptian priests showed Herodotus three hundred and forty-one wooden colossal statues of these Piromis, all ranged in order in a great hall.

Such was the folly of the Egyptians, to lose themselves as it were in a remote antiquity, to which no other people could dare to pretend.

(M86) THARACA. He it was who joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army, to relieve Jerusalem.(449) After the death of Sethon, who had sitten fourteen years on the throne, Tharaca ascended it, and reigned eighteen years. He was the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt.

After his death, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were great disorders and confusions among them.

(M87) At last,(450) twelve of the princ.i.p.al n.o.blemen, conspiring together, seized upon the kingdom, and divided it amongst themselves into as many parts. It was agreed by them, that each should govern his own district with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this agreement, and to bind it with the most dreadful oaths, to elude the prediction of an oracle, which had foretold, that he among them who should offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned together fifteen years in the utmost harmony: and to leave a famous monument of their concord to posterity, they jointly, and at a common expense, built the famous labyrinth, which was a pile of building consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many edifices underground as appeared above it. I have spoken elsewhere of this labyrinth.

One day, as the twelve kings were a.s.sisting at a solemn and periodical sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priests, having presented each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting; when Psammetichus,(451) without any design, supplied the want of this bowl with his brazen helmet, (for each wore one,) and with it performed the ceremony of the libation. This accident struck the rest of the kings, and recalled to their memory the prediction of the oracle above mentioned. They thought it therefore necessary to secure themselves from his attempts, and therefore, with one consent, banished him into the fenny parts of Egypt.

After Psammetichus had pa.s.sed some years there, waiting a favourable opportunity to revenge himself for the affront which had been put upon him, a courier brought him advice, that brazen men were landed in Egypt.

These were Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon the coasts of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets, cuira.s.ses, and other arms of bra.s.s. Psammetichus immediately called to mind the oracle, which had answered him, that he should be succoured by brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt but the prediction was now fulfilled. He therefore made a league with these strangers; engaged them with great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces; and put these Greeks at their head; when giving battle to the eleven kings, he defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.

(M88) PSAMMETICHUS. As this prince owed his preservation to the Ionians and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, (from which all foreigners. .h.i.therto had been excluded;) and, by a.s.signing them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native country.(452) By his order, Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks; and from that aera, the Egyptian history, which, till then, had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war against the king of a.s.syria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the a.s.syrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae. They were eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger.

Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government,(453) thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the a.s.syrian, his neighbour, whose power increased daily. For this purpose, he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident related by Diodorus;(454) that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself, in preference to them, quitted the service, to the number of upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement.

Be this as it will, Psammetichus entered Palestine,(455) where his career was stopped by Azotus, one of the princ.i.p.al cities of the country, which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty-nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in ancient history.

This was anciently one of the five capital cities of the Philistines. The Egyptians, having seized it some time before, had fortified it with such care, that it was their strongest bulwark on that side. Nor could Sennacherib enter Egypt, till he had first made himself master of this city,(456) which was taken by Tartan, one of his generals. The a.s.syrians had possessed it hitherto; and it was not till after the long siege just now mentioned, that the Egyptians recovered it.

In this period,(457) the Scythians, leaving the banks of the Palus Maeotis, made an inroad into Media, defeated Cyaxares, the king of that country, and deprived him of all Upper Asia, of which they kept possession during twenty-eight years. They pushed their conquests in Syria as far as to the frontiers of Egypt. But Psammetichus marching out to meet them, prevailed so far, by his presents and entreaties, that they advanced no farther, and by that means delivered his kingdom from these dangerous enemies.

Till his reign,(458) the Egyptians had imagined themselves to be the most ancient nation upon earth. Psammetichus was desirous to prove this himself, and he employed a very extraordinary experiment for this purpose.

He commanded (if we may credit the relation) two children, newly born of poor parents, to be brought up (in the country) in a hovel, that was to be kept continually shut. They were committed to the care of a shepherd, (others say, of nurses, whose tongues were cut out,) who was to feed them with the milk of goats; and was commanded not to suffer any person to enter into this hut, nor himself to speak even a single word in the hearing of these children. At the expiration of two years, as the shepherd was one day coming into the hut to feed these children, they both cried out, with hands extended towards their foster-father, _beccos, beccos_.

The shepherd, surprised to hear a language that was quite new to him, but which they repeated frequently afterwards, sent advice of this to the king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he himself might be a witness to the truth of what was told him; and accordingly both of them began, in his presence, to stammer out the sounds above mentioned. Nothing now was wanting but to ascertain what nation it was that used this word; and it was found that the Phrygians called bread by this name. From this time they were allowed the honour of antiquity, or rather of priority, which the Egyptians themselves, notwithstanding their jealousy of it, and the many ages they had possessed this glory, were obliged to resign to them. As goats were brought to these children, in order that they might feed upon their milk, and historians do not say that they were deaf, some are of opinion that they might have learnt the word _bec_, or _beccos_, by mimicking the cry of those creatures.

Psammetichus died in the 24th year of Josias, king of Judah, and was succeeded by his son Nechao.

(M89) NECHAO.(459) This prince is often mentioned in Scripture under the name of Pharaoh-Necho.(460)

He attempted to join the Nile to the Red-Sea, by cutting a ca.n.a.l from one to the other. The distance which separates them is at least a thousand stadia.(461) After a hundred and twenty thousand workmen had lost their lives in this attempt, Nechao was obliged to desist; the oracle which had been consulted by him, having answered, that this new ca.n.a.l would open a pa.s.sage to the Barbarians (for so the Egyptians called all other nations) to invade Egypt.

Nechao was more successful in another enterprise.(462) Skilful Phnician mariners, whom he had taken into his service, having sailed from the Red-Sea in order to discover the coasts of Africa, went successfully round it; and the third year after their setting out, returned to Egypt through the Straits of Gibraltar. This was a very extraordinary voyage, in an age when the compa.s.s was not known. It was made twenty-one centuries before Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, (by discovering the Cape of Good Hope, in the year 1497,) found out the very same way to sail to the Indies, by which these Phnicians had come from thence into the Mediterranean.

The Babylonians and Medes, having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the empire of the a.s.syrians, were thereby become so formidable, that they drew upon themselves the jealousy of all their neighbours.(463) Nechao, alarmed at the danger, advanced to the Euphrates, at the head of a powerful army, in order to check their progress. Josiah, king of Judah, so famous for his uncommon piety, observing that he took his route through Judea, resolved to oppose his pa.s.sage. With this view, he raised all the forces of his kingdom, and posted himself in the valley of Megiddo, (a city on this side Jordan, belonging to the tribe of Mana.s.seh, and called Magdolus by Herodotus.) Nechao informed him, by a herald, that his enterprise was not designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had undertaken this war in the name of G.o.d, who was with him; that for this reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war, for fear lest it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not moved by these reasons: he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful an army through Judea, would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that the victor, after the defeat of the Babylonians, would fall upon him, and dispossess him of part of his dominions. He therefore marched to engage Nechao; and was not only overthrown by him, but unfortunately received a wound, of which he died at Jerusalem, whither he had ordered himself to be carried.

Nechao, animated by this victory, continued his march, and advanced towards the Euphrates. He defeated the Babylonians; took Carchemish, a large city in that country; and securing to himself the possession of it by a strong garrison, returned to his own kingdom, after having been absent from it three months.

Being informed in his march homeward, that Jehoahaz had caused himself to be proclaimed king at Jerusalem, without first asking his consent, he commanded him to meet him at Riblah in Syria.(464) The unhappy prince was no sooner arrived there, than he was put in chains by Nechao's order, and sent prisoner to Egypt, where he died. From thence, pursuing his march, he came to Jerusalem, where he placed Eliakim, (called by him Jehoiakim,) another of Josiah's sons, upon the throne, in the room of his brother: and imposed an annual tribute on the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and one talent of gold.(465) This being done, he returned in triumph to Egypt.

Herodotus, mentioning this king's expedition,(466) and the victory gained by him at Magdolus,(467) (as he calls it,) says, that he afterwards took the city Cadytis, which he represents as situated in the mountains of Palestine, and equal in extent to Sardis, the capital at that time not only of Lydia, but of all Asia Minor: this description can suit only Jerusalem, which was situated in the manner above described, and was then the only city in those parts that could be compared to Sardis. It appears besides from Scripture, that Nechao, after his victory, made himself master of this capital of Judea; for he was there in person, when he gave the crown to Jehoiakim. The very name Cadytis, which in Hebrew signifies the Holy, clearly denotes the city of Jerusalem, as is proved by the learned Dean Prideaux.(468)

(M90) Nabopola.s.sar, king of Babylon, observing that, since the taking of Carchemish by Nechao, all Syria and Palestine had shaken off their allegiance to him, and that his years and infirmities would not permit him to march against the rebels in person, he therefore a.s.sociated his son Nabuchodonosor, or Nebuchadnezzar, with him in the empire, and sent him at the head of an army into those countries. This young prince vanquished the army of Nechao near the river Euphrates, recovered Carchemish, and reduced the revolted provinces to their allegiance, as Jeremiah had foretold.(469) Thus he dispossessed the Egyptians of all that belonged to them,(470) from the little river(471)(472) of Egypt to the Euphrates, which comprehended all Syria and Palestine.

Nechao dying after he had reigned sixteen years, left the kingdom to his son.

(M91) PSAMMIS. His reign was but of six years' duration; and history has left us nothing memorable concerning him, except that he made an expedition into Ethiopia.(473)

It was to this prince that the Eleans sent a splendid emba.s.sy, after having inst.i.tuted the Olympic games. They had established all the regulations, and arranged every circ.u.mstance relating to them, with such care, that, in their opinion, nothing seemed wanting to their perfection, and envy itself could not find any fault with them. However, they did not desire so much to have the opinion, as to gain the approbation of the Egyptians, who were looked upon as the wisest and most judicious people in the world.(474) Accordingly, the king a.s.sembled the sages of his nation.

After every thing had been heard which could be said in favour of this inst.i.tution, the Eleans were asked, whether citizens and foreigners were admitted indifferently to these games; to which answer was made, that they were open to every one. To this the Egyptians replied, that the rules of justice would have been more strictly observed, had foreigners only been admitted to these combats; because it was very difficult for the judges, in their award of the victory and the prize, not to be prejudiced in favour of their fellow citizens.

(M92) APRIES. In Scripture he is called Pharaoh-Hophra. He succeeded his father Psammis, and reigned twenty-five years.(475)