Psammetichus and the Saite Dynasty—The Persian Conquest—Last Independent Dynasties. (666-340 b.c.)
After the capture and sack of Thebes, the successors of Tirhakah made no further attempts to recover their lost dominion. The princes who ruled in the north, more or less as the vassals of Assyria, were often engaged in mutual strife, and the twenty satrapies established there by Esar-haddon had dwindled down to twelve—the ‘Dodecarchy,’ of Greek writers. Bravest and most conspicuous amongst the twelve princes was Psamtek (Psammetichus), son of that Necho who had been imprisoned and restored by Assur-bani-pal[91] (p. 260). Banished by the jealousy of his rivals, Psammetichus[92] determined on a new and energetic policy. He formed an alliance with the king of Lydia, and obtained the assistance of a large number of Greek mercenaries—chiefly Carians and Ionians by birth. He resolved, by their aid, to win back the independence of Egypt by driving out the Assyrians, and to reunite the divided land, by bringing it all under his own sceptre. At Momemphis he defeated the Assyrians in a great battle, and they left Egypt to return no more. Assur-bani-pal, who had conquered Egypt and devastated Thebes, was still reigning at Nineveh; and it must have been not a little humiliating to his pride, to be unable to make another attempt to regain what he had lost. But the time had come when Assyria had no soldiers to spare for foreign conquests; they were all wanted at home to defend the monarchy. Weakened by the incessant warfare that had won so triumphant a military ascendency, she was assailed on every side by the nations to whom she had long been a terror, and by her own subject provinces, ever restlessly eager to cast off the yoke of her tyranny.
Meanwhile Psammetichus successfully achieved the other portion of his task; he re-united the north under his sway, and made peace with the rulers of the south. The descendants of the priest-king, of Piankhi and of Tirhakah henceforth made Napata the centre of their dominion, and abandoned all thought of ruling even in Upper Egypt. The friendship thus formed was cemented by the marriage of Psammetichus with a princess of the southern dynasty. She was daughter of a king named Piankhi and his beautiful wife Ameniritis: a statue of her has been preserved, of which Brugsch says, “Sweet peace seems to hover about her features; the very flowers in her hand suggest her high mission as the reconciler of the long feud.”’
Under the Saite[93] dynasty, established by Psammetichus, Egypt enjoyed peace and prosperity for more than a century. The sun of her former greatness had indeed set, but under Psammetichus and his successors she enjoyed a long and brilliant after-glow of light. This period, which has been called the Egyptian renaissance, was distinguished by a revival of art, tasteful and refined in character.
Psammetichus never forgot how much he owed to the Greek mercenaries; he gave them land, encouraged them to settle in Egypt, and, in short, showed them so much favour that, Herodotus tells us, the jealousy of the native soldiery was aroused; they deserted the camp in large numbers, and took refuge within the Ethiopian dominions, now become more essentially Egyptian than many parts of Egypt proper. Nor was the king content with showing favour to the mercenaries to whom he owed his crown; he also threw the country open to foreign commerce of every kind. Greek factories were built, and Greek merchants settled in Egypt in large numbers, more especially at Naukratis, which became the emporium of Greek trade. In spite of the favour they showed to foreigners neither Psammetichus nor his successors neglected the national religion and the national superstitions. They cared for the temples, and when an Apis died they buried him with lavish and extraordinary magnificence. The long reign of Psammetichus (666-612) was distinguished by one military enterprise, the taking of Azotus, after a prolonged siege of twenty-nine years. And it was during his reign that the devastating hordes of the Scythians from the far north poured over the Assyrian provinces like a countless swarm of locusts, leaving ruin and desolation behind. They approached the confines of Egypt, but Psammetichus succeeded in buying them off; they may have been sated with plunder and spoil, or may not have cared to undertake the hard and weary journey through the waterless Sinai desert. They disappeared from sight suddenly as they had come into sight, but their terrible onslaught and the havoc they wrought was a fatal blow to Assyria’s declining power. It was at the crisis of her fall that Necho (612-596) ascended the throne of Egypt.
Babylon, Elam, and Arabia, leagued against Assyria about 650 b.c., had been successively defeated by King Assur-bani-pal, who took Babylon itself 648 b.c. A pause ensued, for it was no light task to encounter the Assyrian even in the hour of his decline; but on the death of Assur-bani-pal there appears to have been a revolt of some kind, and Nabopolassar, a general who succeeded in putting it down, was made ruler of Babylon by the king of Nineveh. But the ambitious Nabopolassar formed an alliance with the king of Media, and their combined attack was the death-blow of the Assyrian monarchy. It was, perhaps, through a common understanding with the allied states that Psammetichus had besieged Azotus, which lay on the old military road by the sea-coast. Necho took a more active part, and led his army as far as the Euphrates. Whilst on the march, Josiah, king of Judah, had rashly come out to offer him battle, and had been defeated and slain at Megiddo. It must have been at this crisis that Nineveh fell; but though her fall must have shaken the earth no record has come to us concerning it—its precise date is unknown. Only in the exultant cry of a Hebrew prophet[94] do we hear any echo of the shout of execration and the outburst of triumph that went up as the great city fell:—
‘Nineveh is laid waste! who will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek for comforters for thee?... There is no healing of thy hurt; thy wound is incurable: all that hear of thee shall clap their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?’
Upon the ruins of Assyria the genius of Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, raised that mighty Babylonian empire which for about seventy years ruled over the conquered nations. Babylon had never before been distinguished as an ambitious or aggressive state, but the force and energy of this mighty monarch has made her name synonymous with imperial strength, magnificence, and pride. For a brief space Necho had occupied the scene of the triumphs of Thothmes and of Rameses; he deposed the successor of Josiah at Jerusalem, and made Jehoiakim king of Judah. But if he had been visited by any flattering visions of a revival of Egyptian empire they were soon rudely dispelled. The young king of Babylon attacked and routed the Egyptian army, which was encamped at Karchemish, on the Euphrates, and forced Necho to retreat within the boundaries of Egypt. The invasion and the repulse of the Egyptian king has been vividly portrayed in the pages of Jewish prophecy. ‘Egypt riseth up like the river, his waters are moved like the floods; and he saith, I will go up and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city, with the inhabitants thereof.’[95] The horses and chariots are arrayed for battle, the well-equipped mercenary troops stand in serried ranks; but it was all in vain. ‘Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned back? their mighty ones have fled apace, and look not back.... They said, Arise and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword.’[96]
It was not only by this ambitious enterprise, and by its utter failure, that Necho’s reign was distinguished. He had been compelled to abandon the attempt to construct a canal across the isthmus between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, but a naval expedition that he sent out was more successful. The vessels were manned by Phœnicians, and, starting from the Red Sea, returned to Egypt in three years’ time by way of the Mediterranean, having circumnavigated Africa and noted with amazement that during the first part of their voyage the sun had risen on their left, but afterwards it had risen to the right. To the Greeks of a later day this fact appeared to be on the face of it so incredible that they doubted the truth of the whole story. To us it only affords an additional reason for believing it.
Psammetichus ii., the successor of Necho, reigned only about five years, and was followed by Uahpra (or Apries, the Hophra of the Old Testament). The aid of this king was sought both from east and west. After the defeat of Necho, and the homeward flight of the Egyptian army, no military expedition had been undertaken. ‘The king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land; for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.’[97] For a moment indeed, Apries seemed to be moved by the cry for aid that came from Jerusalem. In his triumphal march of successful conquest, Nebuchadnezzar had besieged the city, and carried off its king and many others as prisoners to Babylon; he had then placed Zedekiah on the throne, after exacting from him a solemn oath of fealty. But in an evil moment the vassal king rebelled, and, in the hope that is sometimes born of desperation, sent ambassadors into Egypt ‘that they might give him horses and much people’ (see Ezekiel xvii. 11-21). Irritated by the successive acts of submission and revolt, Nebuchadnezzar now advanced upon the unhappy little country of Judah, which had come to be the sport, as it were, of two mighty states, and resolved to make an end of it altogether. The hope of Zedekiah came to naught; only for a brief interval was the siege suspended, by the news that an Egyptian army was on the march. Soon after, however, it was resumed, and, after it had lasted eighteen months, Jerusalem fell with a sad and terrible destruction—by famine, fire, and slaughter (588 b.c.) The only aid actually rendered by Egypt was the shelter given to the fugitives who sought refuge there after the murder of Gedaliah, the governor appointed by the king of Babylon. They dreaded the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar; they were weary of suffering, and said one to another: ‘We will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread, and there will we dwell.’ And in Egypt they took refuge in spite of the remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah, whom they forced to accompany them.
The Egyptian army, whose advance had momentarily raised the siege of Jerusalem appears to have taken Gaza, but to have retired without encountering the Babylonians. Another expedition was despatched to the west in aid of the Libyans. The Greek colony at Cyrene had received a large number of new settlers, and they had established themselves by dispossessing the natives of their lands. Apries sent an army composed of native Egyptians[98] against Cyrene, but they were defeated, and this defeat was followed by a military revolt. The mutineers complained that they had been selected for the expedition in order that the loss might fall on them, rather than on the Greek mercenaries. The king sent an officer, named Amasis, to the camp, who was popular with the soldiery, and they immediately saluted him as king. Apries then sent a general, named Patahbeni, with orders to bring Amasis back a prisoner, but Amasis replied: ‘Tell the king that I will myself lead the army to his very feet.’ Apries was so enraged at the ill success of his messenger, that he ordered the unfortunate man’s nose and ears to be cut off (a punishment intended for the lowest traitors). This brutal act only incensed the soldiery still further, and the whole army joined in the revolt. Apries, with his Greek mercenaries, met them at Momemphis, but was defeated, and fell into the hands of Amasis, who at first treated him with kindness and respect, but the people murmured at this leniency, and Amasis yielded. Apries was strangled, but his body was buried with due ceremonial in his own sepulchre. Such is the narrative of Greek writers, but there seem some grounds for assuming that the real story was somewhat different; that the king of Babylon himself was at that time in Egypt, and that it was his hand that deposed and slew king Apries and placed Amasis on the throne (572 b.c.). The new king showed even greater favour to the Greeks than his predecessors had done. He gave them possession of the town of Naukratis, with all rights of local self-government and religious worship. Four Greek temples were erected there by different Grecian nationalities. Amasis also sent gifts to Delphi and other Grecian shrines, and he married Ladice of Cyrene, a Greek by birth. He formed alliances with Crœsus of Lydia, and Polycrates of Samos, and his own body-guard was composed of Greek mercenaries.
Whether or not Amasis had ascended the throne as a vassal of Babylon, he certainly reigned as an independent monarch. Nebuchadnezzar, after spending more than thirty years in warfare and in conquest, passed the concluding years of his reign in splendid luxury in the city which he had raised to be the head of the nations, and the glory and wonder of the world. ‘Is not this great Babylon which I have built? I have made completely strong the defences of Babylon; may it last for ever!’ It was only three years after his death that Cyrus resolved to free Persia from the dominion of Media; he accomplished this task after a hard struggle, and then embarked upon that career of conquest which only paused after the eventful night when Babylon, given up to careless revelry, was taken by a foe who could ‘show no mercy’ (539 b.c.). Surprise was mingled with exultation as, at the cry, ‘Babylon is taken,’ ‘the earth trembled, and the sound was heard amongst the nations.’ ‘How is the praise of the whole earth surprised! How is Babylon become an astonishment—a desolation among the nations!’
But the nations were not free although the empire of Nebuchadnezzar had fallen; they had but exchanged masters. The ambition of the conqueror was not sated; the enthusiasm excited by his genius and his triumphs amongst his hardy, warlike, and uncultured followers, did not ebb when Babylon had fallen. There is little doubt that Cyrus planned the invasion of Egypt which was carried out by his son Cambyses[99] (527 b.c.).
Amasis, who had been raised to the throne by so unexpected a stroke of fortune, was a genial and pleasure-loving man—fond of the wine-cup and the merry jest, but he governed Egypt well and prudently during a reign of more than forty years. When he died he bequeathed to his son Psammetichus iii. ‘the inheritance of a lost kingdom.’[100] The Persians entered Egypt, and in a desperate battle at Pelusium the Egyptians were defeated; Memphis was then captured with great slaughter. The unfortunate Psammetichus, who had only reigned six months, was taken prisoner; it is said that he was put to death later on upon a charge of conspiracy. Cambyses assumed an Egyptian title, and reigned over the land as the first monarch of the twenty-seventh, or Persian dynasty. He appears at first to have treated his new subjects with forbearance; he visited the celebrated temple at Sais, inquired into the rites and mysteries of the worship of Neith, and redressed certain grievances of which the priests complained.[101] But to the passionate ambition of Cambyses, the possession of Egypt was only a stepping-stone to the accomplishment of other and far-reaching schemes. He designed to march westward against the rising city of Carthage; to occupy the oasis of Amen, and to conquer the kingdom of Ethiopia. But his Phœnician mercenaries refused to be led against their kinsmen at Carthage; the army, 50,000 strong, which he despatched across the desert, was lost in the burning sands, and the forces which he himself led against Ethiopia were repulsed, and suffered terribly on the retreat from the ravages of famine. The survivors appear to have vented some of their ill-will upon the monuments and statues of Thebes as they passed through on the way to Memphis. The mood in which Cambyses entered that city may be imagined; mortified and exasperated as he was, he found the whole city given up to festivities and rejoicings, and concluded that they must be celebrating his disastrous defeat. Thereupon his fury turned to madness; and when he heard that the people were celebrating the finding of an Apis, he ordered the priests to be scourged, and the chief men of the city to be slain. Then he ordered the sacred bull to be brought into his presence, and stabbed him with his own dagger. There can be little doubt that in an excess of madness, Cambyses wrought terrible havoc on the temples and monuments of the land, though he may not have been guilty of all that was laid to his charge by a people who execrated his memory, and regarded his madness as the just visitation of Heaven. But suddenly there came news of an insurrection in Persia, and Cambyses instantly started for his capital. At Ecbatana, as he was mounting his horse, he stabbed himself (voluntarily or accidentally) with his own dagger—with the same weapon with which he had killed the Apis, the awe-struck Egyptians told Herodotus, and in the very same part of the body.
The short but terrible tyranny of Cambyses was over, and Darius, who succeeded in 522 b.c., proved a mild and forbearing ruler. But after his defeat by the Athenians at Marathon, the Egyptians rose in revolt; Xerxes had to put down this insurrection before he too went against Greece.
During the two centuries when hostilities were so often renewed between Persians and Greeks, there was friendship between Egypt and Greece, and not unfrequently alliance against the Persian kings. The relations between these two countries had long been of a friendly character. Egypt representing all that was wisest and greatest in the long æon that was closing, Greece representing all that was brightest and fairest in the era that was opening. Homer already knew, concerning Egypt, that it was a fertile and a wealthy land—a land especially famed for the skill of its physicians; he tells of its ‘god-descended stream,’ and of the Isle of Pharos, with the safe anchorage by it afforded to storm-tossed mariners. Nor was he ignorant of Thebes in the far south, and her imperial magnificence—Egyptian Thebes, the ‘treasure-house of countless wealth, who boasts her hundred gates—through each of which with horse and car two hundred warriors march.’[102]
To the Egyptians of Homer’s time, the Greeks were probably known as roving pirates of the Mediterranean; afterwards, by a natural transition, as mercenary troops—later on, as busy and successful merchants. Greeks, however, visited Egypt on nobler errands than the mere pursuit of wealth. In the reign of Amasis, Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, resided for a while both at the ‘city of the Sun,’ the most ancient seat of Egyptian learning, and at Sais, the sanctuary of the goddess of wisdom. To him it was that an old Egyptian priest, who was his friend, addressed the memorable words—‘O Solon! Solon! you Greeks are ever children; having no ancient opinion nor any discipline of long standing.’ The earliest Greek philosophers, Pythagoras of Samos, and Thales of Miletus, were believed to have visited Egypt, and no doubt their eager restless inquiries also seemed to the Egyptians like those of ‘children,’ who can so easily ask more than the wisest man can ever answer.
Nothing could be more natural, or indeed inevitable, than that the awakening intellectual and artistic life of Greece should be strongly attracted towards the ancient wisdom and civilisation of Egypt.[103] Geometric and other scientific ideas they certainly carried home from the Land of the Pyramids, and the rudiments of their own civilisation and learning were always said by the Greeks to have come from Egypt.
Persia had conquered Egypt, and was threatening Greece, but the invasion of Xerxes was triumphantly repulsed, and the Athenians subsequently sent aid to the Egyptians in their renewed attempt to cast off the yoke of the common foe.
The revolt was at first successful, but on the arrival of Persian reinforcements the Athenians were driven from Memphis, and forced to retire to an island on the Nile. Here they were blockaded for eighteen months; the foe then, diverting the river from its course, took the Athenian camp by storm, and a fleet of fifty Athenian ships, which entered the Nile in ignorance of the disastrous turn of events, fell into the hands of the Persians. Amyrtæus, who had been proclaimed king, took flight, and sought refuge in the inaccessible marshes of the Delta.
Thus Egypt passed once more under the Persian yoke, but the Persian power itself was declining, and Amyrtæus of Sais (the grandson of the Amyrtæus who fled to the marshes) made himself King of Egypt. His reign of six years constitutes the twenty-eighth dynasty.
This was succeeded by the twenty-ninth (of Mendes), and the thirtieth (of Sebennytus). Under these, her last native dynasties, Egypt maintained her recovered independence for sixty years, during which period she sent aid both to the Lacedæmonians and to the king of Cyprus, in the long-protracted conflict with Persia. Art also revived once more, and was distinguished by a grace and finish that seem to speak of Grecian influences.
Under one of the kings of the thirtieth dynasty, Agesilaus of Sparta was invited to command the Egyptian army. It is said that on his arrival the Egyptians were taken by surprise to find so renowned a king and warrior ‘a little deformed old man, clad in mean attire, and regardless of show and luxury,’ who ‘would sit carelessly upon the grass amongst his soldiers.’[104] At any rate they only intrusted him with the command of the mercenaries. Angry at the affront, the Spartan king supported a rival prince, who displaced Takos, the reigning sovereign, and assumed his place. This king, Nectanebus (361 b.c.), was the last of the long line of kings that opens with king Mena.
Ochus, a cruel but energetic sovereign, succeeded Artaxerxes ii. on the Persian throne; the energies of Greece were concentrated in the struggle against Philip of Macedon. Ochus invaded Egypt with an immense army (ten thousand of whom were Greek mercenaries!). Nectanebus was an incompetent general, but, confident of his own ability, he commanded in person the army of Egyptians and Greek mercenaries, who encountered the Persians at Pelusium. He was defeated, and instantly fled to Memphis; on hearing of the further progress of the enemy, he quitted Memphis and fled southward, until he reached the safe shelter of the Ethiopian land. With this hurried and ignominious retreat, the ancient monarchy of Egypt ceased to be. Deprived of their king and leader, the people at once submitted (about 340 b.c.).
But the Persian conquerors only ruled for twelve years longer—years of danger and distress for their country. Greece had been subjugated by Macedon, and Alexander, son of Philip, rapidly conquered the Persian provinces. Egypt alone remained; in 332 b.c., he entered that country, where he met with no resistance, but was rather hailed as a deliverer. He went to Memphis, where he offered sacrifice to the Apis. Alexander also visited the temple of Amen (of Zeus Ammon, the Greeks called it), in the oasis, twelve days’ journey from Memphis, and in the heart of the desert. This temple was of great renown in antiquity, and its oracle was consulted far and wide. The conqueror was received by the priests with the most flattering assurances. He was the ‘son of Zeus,’ they told him, and should ‘pursue his career of victory until he was taken to the gods.’
Before quitting Egypt, Alexander planned the foundation of the city that was destined to be so famed in after times both as an emporium of trade and as a school of learning and philosophy—Alexandria.
The battle of Arbela decided the fate of the Persian monarchy. But Alexander did not live to rule long over the empire he had won; on his death his dominions were divided amongst his successors. Egypt fell to the Ptolemies, and remained under their rule for three hundred years, until 30 b.c., when it became a Roman province.