This pylon measures 104 feet in length, and is 32 feet 6 inches wide, by 58 feet high. It contains no internal chambers, but merely a narrow staircase which leads to the top of the doorway, and thence to the summit of the towers. Four long angular grooves run up the façade of the towers to a height of about twenty feet from the ground, and are in the same line with a similar number of square holes which pierce the thickness of the building higher up. In these grooves were placed Venetian masts, made of poles spliced together and held in their place by means of hooks and wooden stays which projected from the four holes; these masts were to carry at their tops pennons of various colours. Such was the temple of Khonsû, and the majority of the great Theban buildings—at Luxor, Qurneh, and Bamesseum, or Medinet-Uabu—were constructed on similar lines. Even in their half-ruined condition there is something oppressive and uncanny in their appearance. The gods loved to shroud themselves in mystery, and, therefore, the plan of the building was so arranged as to render the transition almost imperceptible from the blinding sunlight outside to the darkness of their retreat within. In the courtyard, we are still surrounded by vast spaces to which air and light have free access. The hypostyle hall, however, is pervaded by an appropriate twilight, the sanctuary is veiled in still deeper darkness, while in the chambers beyond reigns an almost perpetual night. The effect produced by this gradation of obscurity was intensified by constructional artifices. The different parts of the building are not all on the same ground-level, the pavement rising as the sanctuary is approached, and the rise is concealed by a few steps placed at intervals. The difference of level in the temple of Khonsû is not more than five feet three inches, but it is combined with a still more considerable lowering of the height of the roof. From the pylon to the wall at the further end the height decreases as we go on; the peristyle is more lofty than the hypostyle hall, this again is higher than the sanctuary and the hall of columns, and the chamber beyond it drops still further in altitude.*

Karnak is an exception to this rule; this temple had in the course of centuries undergone so many restorations and additions, that it formed a collection of buildings rather than a single edifice. It might have been regarded, as early as the close of the Theban empire, as a kind of museum, in which every century and every period of art, from the XIIth dynasty downwards, had left its distinctive mark.*

All the resources of architecture had been brought into requisition during this period to vary, at the will of each sovereign, the arrangement and the general effect of the component parts. Columns with sixteen sides stand in the vicinity of square pillars, and lotiform capitals alternate with those of the bell-shape; attempts were even made to introduce new types altogether. The architect who built at the back of the sanctuary what is now known as the colonnade of Thûtmosis III., attempted to invert the bell-shaped capital; the bell was turned downwards, and the neck attached to the plinth, while the mouth rested on the top of the shaft. This awkward arrangement did not meet with favour, for we find it nowhere repeated; other artists, however, with better taste, sought at this time to apply the flowers symbolical of Upper and Lower Egypt to the decorations of the shafts. In front of the sanctuary of Karnak two pillars are still standing which have on them in relief representations respectively of the fullblown lotus and the papyrus. A building composed of so many incongruous elements required frequent restoration—a wall which had been undermined by water needed strengthening, a pylon displaying cracks claimed attention, some unsafe colonnade, or a colossus which had been injured by the fall of a cornice, required shoring up—so that no sooner had the corvée for repairs completed their work in one part, than they had to begin again elsewhere.

The revenues of Amon must, indeed, have been enormous to have borne the continual drain occasioned by restoration, and the resources of the god would soon have been exhausted had not foreign wars continued to furnish him during several centuries with all or more than he needed.

The gods had suffered severely in the troublous times which had followed the reign of Seti II., and it required all the generosity of Ramses III. to compensate them for the losses they had sustained during the anarchy under Arisû. The spoil taken from the Libyans, from the Peoples of the Sea, and from the Hittites had flowed into the sacred treasuries, while the able administration of the sovereign had done the rest, so that on the accession of Ramses IV. the temples were in a more prosperous state than ever.* They held as their own property 169 towns, nine of which were in Syria and Ethiopia; they possessed 113,433 slaves of both sexes, 493,386 head of cattle, 1,071,780 arurse of land, 514 vineyards and orchards, 88 barks and sea-going vessels, 336 kilograms of gold both in ingots and wrought, 2,993,964 grammes of silver, besides quantities of copper and precious stones, and hundreds of storehouses in which they kept corn, oil, wine, honey, and preserved meats—the produce of their domains. Two examples will suffice to show the extent of this latter item: the live geese reached the number of 680,714, and the salt or smoked fish that of 494,800.** Amon claimed the giant share of this enormous total, and three-fourths of it or more were reserved for his use, namely—-86,486 slaves, 421,362 head of cattle, 898,168 arurse of cornland, 433 vineyards and orchards, and 56 Egyptian towns. The nine foreign towns all belonged to him, and one of them contained the temple in which he was worshipped by the Syrians whenever they came to pay their tribute to the king’s representatives: it was but just that his patrimony should surpass that of his compeers, since the conquering Pharaohs owed their success to him, who, without the co-operation of the other feudal deities, had lavished victories upon them.

His domain was at least five times more considerable than that of Râ of Heliopolis, and ten times greater than that of the Memphite Phtah, and yet of old, in the earlier times of history, Râ and Phtah were reckoned the wealthiest of the Egyptian gods. It is easy to understand the influence which a god thus endowed with the goods of this world exercised over men in an age when the national wars had the same consequences for the immortals as for their worshippers, and when the defeat of a people was regarded as a proof of the inferiority of its patron gods. The most victorious divinity became necessarily the wealthiest, before whom all other deities bowed, and whom they, as well as their subjects, were obliged to serve.

So powerful a god as Amon had but few obstacles to surmount before becoming the national deity; indeed, he was practically the foremost of the gods during the Ramesside period, and was generally acknowledged as Egypt’s representative by all foreign nations.* His priests shared in the prestige he enjoyed, and their influence in state affairs increased proportionately with his power.

The chief of their hierarchy, however, did not bear the high titles which in ancient times distinguished those of Memphis and Heliopolis; he was content with the humble appellation of first prophet of Amon. He had for several generations been nominated by the sovereign, but he was generally chosen from the families attached hereditarily or otherwise to the temple of Karnak, and must previously have passed through every grade of the priestly hierarchy. Those who aspired to this honour had to graduate as “divine fathers;” this was the first step in the initiation, and one at which many were content to remain, but the more ambitious or favoured advanced by successive stages to the dignity of third, and then of second, prophet before attaining to the highest rank.*

The Pharaohs of the XIXth dynasty jealously supervised the promotions made in the Theban temples, and saw that none was elected except him who was devoted to their interests—such as, for example, Baûkûni-khonsû and Unnofri under Ramses II. Baûkûni-khonsû distinguished himself by his administrative qualities; if he did not actually make the plans for the hypostyle hall at Karnak, he appears at least to have superintended its execution and decoration. He finished the great pylon, erected the obelisks and gateways, built the bari or vessel of the god, and found a further field for his activity on the opposite bank of the Nile, where he helped to complete both the chapel at Qurneh and also the Ramesseum. Ramses II. had always been able to make his authority felt by the high priests who succeeded Baûkûni-khonsû, but the Pharaohs who followed him did not hold the reins with such a strong hand. As early as the reigns of Mînephtah and Seti II. the first prophets, Raî and Ramâ, claimed the right of building at Karnak for their own purposes, and inscribed on the walls long inscriptions in which their own panegyrics took precedence of that of the sovereign; they even aspired to a religious hegemony, and declared themselves to be the “chief of all the prophets of the gods of the South and North.” We do not know what became of them during the usurpation of Arisû, but Nakhtû-ramses, son of Miribastît, who filled the office during the reign of Ramses III., revived these ambitious projects as soon as the state of Egypt appeared to favour them. The king, however pious he might be, was not inclined to yield up any of his authority, even though it were to the earthly delegate of the divinity whom he reverenced before all others; the sons of the Pharaoh were, however, more accommodating, and Nakhtû-ramses played his part so well that he succeeded in obtaining from them the reversion of the high priesthood for his son Amenôthes. The priestly office, from having been elective, was by this stroke suddenly made hereditary in the family. The kings preserved, it is true, the privilege of confirming the new appointment, and the nominee was not considered properly qualified until he had received his investiture from the sovereign.*

Practically the Pharaohs lost the power of choosing one among the sons of the deceased pontiff; they were forced to enthrone the eldest of his survivors, and legalise his accession by their approbation, even when they would have preferred another. It was thus that a dynasty of vassal High Priests came to be established at Thebes side by side with the royal dynasty of the Pharaohs.

The new priestly dynasty was not long in making its power felt in Thebes. Nakhtû-ramses and Amenôthes lived to a great age—from the reign of Ramses III. to that of Ramses X., at the least; they witnessed the accession of nine successive Pharaohs, and the unusual length of their pontificates no doubt increased the already extraordinary prestige which they enjoyed throughout the length and breadth of Egypt. It seemed as if the god delighted to prolong the lives of his representatives beyond the ordinary limits, while shortening those of the temporal sovereigns. When the reigns of the Pharaohs began once more to reach their normal length, the authority of Amenôthes had become so firmly established that no human power could withstand it, and the later Ramessides were merely a set of puppet kings who were ruled by him and his successors. Not only was there a cessation of foreign expeditions, but the Delta, Memphis, and Ethiopia were alike neglected, and the only activity displayed by these Pharaohs, as far as we can gather from their monuments, was confined to the service of Amon and Khonsû at Thebes. The lack of energy and independence in these sovereigns may not, however, be altogether attributable to their feebleness of character; it is possible that they would gladly have entered on a career of conquest had they possessed the means. It is always a perilous matter to allow the resources of a country to fall into the hands of a priesthood, and to place its military forces at the same time in the hands of the chief religious authority. The warrior Pharaohs had always had at their disposal the spoils obtained from foreign nations to make up the deficit which their constant gifts to the temples were making in the treasury. The sons of Ramses III., on the other hand, had suspended all military efforts, without, however, lessening their lavish gifts to the gods, and they must, in the absence of the spoils of war, have drawn to a considerable extent upon the ordinary resources of the country; their successors therefore found the treasury impoverished, and they would have been entirely at a loss for money had they attempted to renew the campaigns or continue the architectural work of their forefathers. The priests of Amon had not as yet suffered materially from this diminution of revenue, for they possessed property throughout the length and breadth of Egypt, but they were obliged to restrict their expenditure, and employ the sums formerly used for the enlarging of the temples on the maintenance of their own body. Meanwhile public works had been almost everywhere suspended; administrative discipline became relaxed, and disturbances, with which the police were unable to cope, were increasing in all the important towns. Nothing is more indicative of the state to which Egypt was reduced, under the combined influence of the priesthood and the Ramessides, than the thefts and pillaging of which the Theban necropolis was then the daily scene. The robbers no longer confined themselves to plundering the tombs of private persons; they attacked the royal burying-places, and their depredations were carried on for years before they were discovered. In the reign of Ramses IX., an inquiry, set on foot by Amenôthes, revealed the fact that the tomb of Sovkûmsaûf I. and his wife, Queen Nûbk-hâs, had been rifled, that those of Amenôthes I. and of Antuf IV. had been entered by tunnelling, and that some dozen other royal tombs in the cemetery of Drah abu’l Neggah were threatened.*

The severe means taken to suppress the evil were not, however, successful; the pillagings soon began afresh, and the reigns of the last three Ramessides between the robbers and the authorities, were marked by a struggle in which the latter did not always come off triumphant.

A system of repeated inspections secured the valley of Biban el-Moluk from marauders,* but elsewhere the measures of defence employed were unavailing, and the necropolis was given over to pillage, although both Amenôthes and Hrihor had used every effort to protect it.

Hrihor appears to have succeeded immediately after Amenôthes, and his accession to the pontificate gave his family a still more exalted position in the country. As his wife Nozmit was of royal blood, he assumed titles and functions to which his father and grandfather had made no claim. He became the “Royal Son” of Ethiopia and commander-in-chief of the national and foreign troops; he engraved his name upon the monuments he decorated, side by side with that of Ramses XII.; in short, he possessed all the characteristics of a Pharaoh except the crown and the royal protocol. A century scarcely had elapsed since the abdication of Ramses III., and now Thebes and the whole of Egypt owned two masters: one the embodiment of the ancient line, but a mere nominal king; the other the representative of Amon, and the actual ruler of the country.

What then happened when the last Ramses who bore the kingly title was gathered to his fathers? The royal lists record the accession after his death of a new dynasty of Tanitic origin, whose founder was Nsbindidi or Smendes; but, on the other hand, we gather from the Theban monuments that the crown was seized by Hrihor, who reigned over the southern provinces contemporaneously with Smendes. Hrihor boldly assumed as prenomen his title of “First Prophet of Amon,” and his authority was acknowledged by Ethiopia, over which he was viceroy, as well as by the nomes forming the temporal domain of the high priests. The latter had acquired gradually, either by marriage or inheritance, fresh territory for the god, in the lands of the princes of Nekhabît, Kop-tos, Akhmîm, and Abydos, besides the domains of some half-dozen feudal houses who, from force of circumstances, had become sacerdotal families; the extinction of the direct line of Ramessides now secured the High Priests the possession of Thebes itself, and of all the lands within the southern provinces which were the appanage of the crown.

They thus, in one way or another, became the exclusive masters of the southern half of the Nile valley, from Elephantine to Siut; beyond Siut also they had managed to acquire suzerainty over the town of Khobît, and the territory belonging to it formed an isolated border province in the midst of the independent baronies.*

The representative of the dynasty reigning at Tanis held the remainder of Egypt from Shit to the Mediterranean—the half belonging to the Memphite Phtah and the Helio-politan Râ, as opposed to that assigned to Anion. The origin of this Tanite sovereign is uncertain, but it would appear that he was of more exalted rank than his rival in the south. The official chronicling of events was marked by the years of his reign, and the chief acts of the government were carried out in his name even in the Thebaid.* Repeated inundations had caused the ruin of part of the temple of Karnak, and it was by the order and under the auspices of this prince that all the resources of the country were employed to accomplish the much-needed restoration.**

It would have been impossible for him to have exercised any authority over so rich and powerful a personage as Hrihor had he not possessed rights to the crown, before which even the high priests of Amon were obliged to bow, and hence it has been supposed that he was a descendant of Ramses II. The descendants of this sovereign were doubtless divided into at least two branches, one of which had just become extinct, leaving no nearer heir than Hrihor, while another, of which there were many ramifications, had settled in the Delta. The majority of these descendants had become mingled with the general population, and had sunk to the condition of private individuals; they had, however, carefully preserved the tradition of their origin, and added proudly to their name the qualification of royal son of Ramses. They were degenerate scions of the Ramessides, and had neither the features nor the energy of their ancestor. One of them, Zodphta-haûfônkhi, whose mummy was found at Deîr el-Baharî, appears to have been tall and vigorous, but the head lacks the haughty refinement which characterizes those of Seti I. and Ramses II., and the features are heavy and coarse, having a vulgar, commonplace expression.

It seems probable that one branch of the family, endowed with greater capability than the rest, was settled at Tanis, where Sesostris had, as we have seen, resided for many years; Smendes was the first of this branch to ascend the throne. The remembrance of his remote ancestor, Ramses IL, which was still treasured up in the city he had completely rebuilt, as well as in the Delta into which he had infused new life, was doubtless of no small service in securing the crown for his descendant, when, the line of the Theban kings having come to an end, the Tanites put in their claim to the succession. We are unable to discover if war broke out between the two competitors, or if they arrived at an agreement without a struggle; but, at all events, we may assume that, having divided Egypt between them, neither of them felt himself strong enough to overcome his rival, and contented himself with the possession of half the empire, since he could not possess it in its entirety. We may fairly believe that Smendes had the greater right to the throne, and, above all, the more efficient army of the two, since, had it been otherwise, Hrihor would never have consented to yield him the priority.

The unity of Egypt was, to outward appearances, preserved, through the nominal possession by Smendes of the suzerainty; but, as a matter of fact, it had ceased to exist, and the fiction of the two kingdoms had become a reality for the first time within the range of history. Henceforward there were two Egypts, governed by different constitutions and from widely remote centres. Theban Egypt was, before all things, a community recognizing a theocratic government, in which the kingly office was merged in that of the high priest. Separated from Asia by the length of the Delta, it turned its attention, like the Pharaohs of the VIth and XIIth dynasties, to Ethiopia, and owing to its distance from the Mediterranean, and from the new civilization developed on its shores, it became more and more isolated, till at length it was reduced to a purely African state. Northern Egypt, on the contrary, maintained contact with European and Asiatic nations; it took an interest in their future, it borrowed from them to a certain extent whatever struck it as being useful or beautiful, and when the occasion presented itself, it acted in concert with Mediterranean powers. There was an almost constant struggle between these two divisions of the empire, at times breaking out into an open rupture, to end as often in a temporary re-establishment of unity. At one time Ethiopia would succeed in annexing Egypt, and again Egypt would seize some part of Ethiopia; but the settlement of affairs was never final, and the conflicting elements, brought with difficulty into harmony, relapsed into their usual condition at the end of a few years. A kingdom thus divided against itself could never succeed in maintaining its authority over those provinces which, even in the heyday of its power, had proved impatient of its yoke.

Asia was associated henceforward in the minds of the Egyptians with painful memories of thwarted ambitions, rather than as offering a field for present conquest. They were pursued by the memories of their former triumphs, and the very monuments of their cities recalled what they were anxious to forget. Wherever they looked within their towns they encountered the representation of some Asiatic scene; they read the names of the cities of Syria on the walls of their temples; they saw depicted on them its princes and its armies, whose defeat was recorded by the inscriptions as well as the tribute which they had been forced to pay. The sense of their own weakness prevented the Egyptians from passing from useless regrets to action; when, however, one or other of the Pharaohs felt sufficiently secure on the throne to carry his troops far afield, he was always attracted to Syria, and crossed her frontiers, often, alas! merely to encounter defeat.

THE RISE OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

PHOENICIA AND THE NORTHERN NATIONS AFTER THE DEATH OP RAMSES III.—THE FIRST ASSYRIAN EMPIRE: TIGLATH-PILESUR I.—THE ARAMÆANS AND THE KHÂTI.

The continuance of Egyptian influence over Syrian civilization after the death of Ramses III.—Egyptian myths in Phoenicia: Osiris and Isis at Byblos—Horus, Thot, and the origin of the Egyptian alphabet—The tombs at Arvad and the Kabr-Hiram; Egyptian designs in Phoenician glass and goldsmiths’work—Commerce with Egypt, the withdrawal of Phoenician colonies in the Ægean Sea and the Achæans in Cyprus; maritime expeditions in the Western Mediterranean.

Northern Syria: the decadence of the Hittites and the steady growth of the Aramæan tribes—The decline of the Babylonian empire under the Cossæan kings, and its relations with Egypt: Assuruballit, Bammdn-nirdri I. and the first Assyrian conquests—Assyria, its climate, provinces, and cities: the god Assur and his Ishtar—The wars against Chaldæa: Shalmaneser I., Tulculi-ninip I., and the taking of Babylon—Belchadrezzar and the last of the Cosssæans.

The dynasty of Pashê: Nebuchadrezzar I., his disputes with Elam, his defeat by Assurrîshishî—The legend of the first Assyrian empire, Ninos and Semiramis—The Assyrians and their political constitution: the limmu, the king and his divine character, his hunting and his wars—The Assyrian army: the infantry and chariotry, the crossing of rivers, mode of marching in the plains and in the mountain districts—Camps, battles, sieges; cruelty shown to the vanquished, the destruction of towns and the removal of the inhabitants, the ephemeral character of the Assyrian conquests.

Tiglath pileser I.: Ms campaign against the Mushhu, his conquest of Kurhhi and of the regions of the Zab—The petty Asiatic kingdoms and their civilization: art and writing in the old Hittite states—Tiglath-pileser I. in Nairi and in Syria: his triumphal stele at Sebbeneh-Su—His buildings, his hunts, his conquest of Babylon—Merodach-nadin-akhi and the close of the Pashê dynasty—Assur-belkala and Samsi-rammân III.: the decline of Assyria—Syria without a foreign rider: the incapacity of the Khdti to give unity to the country.

CHAPTER II—THE RISE OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

Phoenicia and the northern nations after the death of Ramses III.—The first Assyrian empire: Tiglath-pileser I.—The Aramoans and the Khâti.

The cessation of Egyptian authority over countries in which it had so long prevailed did not at once do away with the deep impression which it had made upon their constitution and customs. While the nobles and citizens of Thebes were adopting the imported worship of Baal and Astartê, and were introducing into the spoken and written language words borrowed from Semitic speech, the Syrians, on the other hand, were not unreceptive of the influence of their conquerors. They had applied themselves zealously to the study of Egyptian arts, industry and religion, and had borrowed from these as much, at least, as they had lent to the dwellers on the Nile. The ancient Babylonian foundation of their civilization was not, indeed, seriously modified, but it was covered over, so to speak, with an African veneer which varied in depth according to the locality.*

Phoenicia especially assumed and retained this foreign exterior. Its merchants, accustomed to establish themselves for lengthened periods in the principal trade-centres on the Nile, had become imbued therein with something of the religious ideas and customs of the land, and on returning to their own country had imported these with them and propagated them in their neighbourhood. They were not content with other household utensils, furniture, and jewellery than those to which they had been accustomed on the Nile, and even the Phonician gods seemed to be subject to this appropriating mania, for they came to be recognised in the indigenous deities of the Said and the Delta. There was, at the outset, no trait in the character of Baalat by which she could be assimilated to Isis or Hathor: she was fierce, warlike, and licentious, and wept for her lover, while the Egyptian goddesses were accustomed to shed tears for their husbands only. It was this element of a common grief, however, which served to associate the Phonician and Egyptian goddesses, and to produce at length a strange blending of their persons and the legends concerning them; the lady of Byblos ended in becoming an Isis or a Hathor,* and in playing the part assigned to the latter in the Osirian drama.

* The assimilation must have been ancient, since the Egyptians of the Theban dynasties already accepted Baalat as the Hathor of Byblos.

This may have been occasioned by her city having maintained closer relationships than the southern towns with Bûto and Mendes, or by her priests having come to recognise a fundamental agreement between their theology and that of Egypt. In any case, it was at Byblos that the most marked and numerous, as well as the most ancient, examples of borrowing from the religions of the Nile were to be found. The theologians of Byblos imagined that the coffin of Osiris, after it had been thrown into the sea by Typhon, had been thrown up on the land somewhere near their city at the foot of a tamarisk, and that this tree, in its rapid growth, had gradually enfolded within its trunk the body and its case. King Malkander cut it down in order to use it as a support for the roof of his palace: a marvellous perfume rising from it filled the apartments, and it was not long before the prodigy was bruited abroad. Isis, who was travelling through the world in quest of her husband, heard of it, and at once realised its meaning: clad in rags and weeping, she sat down by the well whither the women of Byblos were accustomed to come every morning and evening to draw water, and, being interrogated by them, refused to reply; but when the maids of Queen Astartê* approached in their turn, they were received by the goddess in the most amiable manner—Isis deigning even to plait their hair, and to communicate to them the odour of myrrh with which she herself was impregnated.

Their mistress came to see the stranger who had thus treated her servants, took her into her service, and confided to her the care of her lately born son. Isis became attached to the child, adopted it for her own, after the Egyptian manner, by inserting her finger in its mouth; and having passed it through the fire during the night in order to consume away slowly anything of a perishable nature in its body, metamorphosed herself into a swallow, and flew around the miraculous pillar uttering plaintive cries. Astartê came upon her once while she was bathing the child in the flame, and broke by her shrieks of fright the charm of immortality. Isis was only able to reassure her by revealing her name and the object of her presence there. She opened the mysterious tree-trunk, anointed it with essences, and wrapping it in precious cloths, transmitted it to the priests of Byblos, who deposited it respectfully in their temple: she put the coffin which it contained on board ship, and brought it, after many adventures, into Egypt. Another tradition asserts, however, that Osiris never found his way back to his country: he was buried at Byblos, this tradition maintained, and it was in his honour that the festivals attributed by the vulgar to the young Adonis were really celebrated. A marvellous fact seemed to support this view. Every year a head of papyrus, thrown into the sea at some unknown point of the Delta, was carried for six days along the Syrian coast, buffeted by wind and waves, and on the seventh was thrown up at Byblos, where the priests received it and exhibited it solemnly to the people.* The details of these different stories are not in every case very ancient, but the first fact in them carries us back to the time when Byblos had accepted the sovereignty of the Theban dynasties, and was maintaining daily commercial and political relations with the inhabitants of the Nile valley.**

The city proclaimed Horus to be a great god.* El-Kronos allied himself with Osiris as well as with Adonis; Isis and Baalat became blended together at their first encounter, and the respective peoples made an exchange of their deities with the same light-heartedness as they displayed in trafficking with the products of their soil or their industry.

After Osiris, the Ibis Thot was the most important among the deities who had emigrated to Asia. He was too closely connected with the Osirian cycle to be forgotten by the Phoenicians after they had adopted his companions. We are ignorant of the particular divinity with whom he was identified, or would be the more readily associated from some similarity in the pronunciation of his name: we know only that he still preserved in his new country all the power of his voice and all the subtilty of his mind. He occupied there also the position of scribe and enchanter, as he had done at Thebes, Memphis, Thinis, and before the chief of each Heliopolitan Ennead. He became the usual adviser of El-Kronos at Byblos, as he had been of Osiris and Horus; he composed charms for him, and formulae which increased the warlike zeal of his partisans; he prescribed the form and insignia of the god and of his attendant deities, and came finally to be considered as the inventor of letters.*

The epoch, indeed, in which he became a naturalised Phoenician coincides approximately with a fundamental revolution in the art of writing—that in which a simple and rapid stenography was substituted for the complicated and tedious systems with which the empires of the ancient world had been content from their origin. Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Arvad, had employed up to this period the most intricate of these systems. Like most of the civilized nations of Western Asia, they had conducted their diplomatic and commercial correspondence in the cuneiform character impressed upon clay tablets. Their kings had had recourse to a Babylonian model for communicating to the Amenôthes Pharaohs the expression of their wishes or their loyalty; we now behold them, after an interval of four hundred years and more*—during which we have no examples of their monuments—possessed of a short and commodious script, without the encumbrance of ideograms, determinatives, polyphony and syllabic sounds, such as had fettered the Egyptian and Chaldæan scribes, in spite of their cleverness in dealing with them. Phonetic articulations were ultimately resolved into twenty-two sounds, to each of which a special sign was attached, which collectively took the place of the hundreds or thousands of signs formerly required.