>-<^<p

I?

v.

MANUAL

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST,

TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE MEDIAN WARS.

THE
'.nt's

Manual

of Oriental Histo?y.

A MANUAL

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST

TO

THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE MEDIAN WARS

FRANCOIS
Sub-Librarian of the

LENORMANT,
Jinfierinl Institute

of P'rciuir

E.

chp:vallier,

Metitber of the Royal Asiatic Society.

VOL.

I.

COMPRISING THE HISTORY OF THK ISKAELITKS, EGYPTIANS,

ASSYRIANS,

AND BABYLONIANS.

PHILADELPHIA
J.

B.

LIPPINCOTT AND
LONDON
:

CO.

ASHER AND

CO.

MDCCCLXIX.

ELEaRONIC VERSJOM
AVAILABLE

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE

Preface Author's Preface to the English Edition

ix

xvii

BOOK

I.PRIMITIVE TIMES.
I.

Chap.

Section
,,

The Bible Narrative. I. The Human Race befoi^e

II.

the Deluge

III.

The Deluge The Confusion of Tongues

5 7

Chap.

II.

Section I.

Traditions parallel to the Bible Story. The Creation. The Fall and the Antediluvian
Patriarchs
8

,, ,,

,,

The Deluge III. The Cradl^ of Postdiluvian Humanity IV. The Tower of Babel
II.

13 ig

22

Chap.

III.

Material Vestiges of Primitive Humanity.

II.

Section I.
,,

,, ,,

III.

Remains of the Archreolithic Epoch Remains of the Neolithic Epoch Chronology of these two Epochs

24 30
35 39

IV. Prehistoric Archaeology of the Bible

Chap. IV.
Section

Human Races and their Languages.

I.

The Unity
ties

of the

Human Race

and

its

Varie-

,, >>

,,

,,
,,

The Four Great Races of Mankind III. The Descendants of Noah according Book of Genesis IV. The Principal Families of Languages V. The Semitic Languages VI. The Indo-European Languages
II.

48 54
to llie

57
65 70 73

BOOK

II.THE ISRAELITES.
I.

Chap.

The PatriarchsThe

Moses.

Israelites in Egypt
79 85

Section

I.

Abraham
...

,,

Isaac and Jacob III. Joseph in iEgypt

II.

89
the Exodus

IV. V. ,, VI. ,, VII. ,, VIII. IX. ,,

,,

The Israelites in Egypt and The Israelites at Sinai The Law of Moses The Tabernacle

91

96 98
103 105 108

Sojourn in the Desert Conquest of the Country East of the Jordan...

b


vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE

ClIAl\ TT.

KSTAHMSHMENT
I.

OK THE ISRAELITES IN THE

Saliou
,,

,, ,,

I'ROMisEo Land The J u hoes. Conquest of llie Land of Canaan Josluia IL Period of Repose l"'irst Serviliulc Commencement of the Judges in. Ehud, Shamgar, Deboiali, Gideon, Barak ... IV. Eli and Sanniel

IIO'

114
1

19

123

Chap. III. Kingdom of Israel mon.

Section
,, ,,

I.

Saul, David, Establishment of Royalty Saul

David

Solo130 136 142

II.

III.

Solomon

Chap.

IV. Separation of the Ten Tribes Kingdoms OF Israel andJudah Fall of Samaria and Jeru.salem.
I.

Section

Rchoboam and Jeroboam Ten Tribes

Israel

Separation of

the

147

,,

II.

Disorders and Reverses in the

Kingdom of
153 156
165

,,
,,

III.

Ahab, Jehoshaphat and their Sons IV. The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel from the

,,

,,

5>

reign of Athaliah to the death of Azariah... V. Intervention of the Assyrians in Palestine Decline of the Kingdom of Israel and Fall of Samaria VI. The Kingdom of Judah from the Capture of Samaria to the Battle of Megiddo VII. Last Days of the Kingdom of Judah Nebuchadnezzar Capture of Jerusalem

171

176
185

BOOK

III. THE

EGYPTIANS.
Nile and
its

Chap.

L Egypt The
The Kings

Inundations

its

Section I.
,, ,,

of the Old Empire. Physical Geography of Egypt The Nile,

,,

Inundations II. Principal Sources of the History of Egypt ... First Dynasties III. Foundation of the Monarchy IV. Fourth and Fifth Dynasties Age of the Great

193 195 201

Pyramids

205

V.

From

the Sixth to the Eleventh Dynasty Temporary Decline of Egyptian Civilisation

210

Chap.

II.

The Middle Empire.

I.

Section

,,

,,
,,

Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties The Labyrinth and Lake Moeris II. Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties III. Invasion and Dominion of the Shepherds IV. Expulsion of the Shepherds

213 217 219 223


TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CiiAr. III.

vii

The Great Conquerors of the New Empire

I.

PAGE

Section

Foreign Influence of Egyi'T. Eighteenth Dynasty First Successors Ahmes Seventeentli Century n.c
Continuation of
tlic

of

226
229

,,

II.

Eighteenth Dynasty

Thothmes
,,

III

,,

,,

,,

,,

Last Kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty Rehgious Troubles IV. Commencement of the Nineteenth Dynasty .Seti I. Fifteenth Century B.C V. Ramses II. (Sesostris) VI. End of the Nineteenth Dynasty Foreign Invasions The Exodus VII. Commencement of the Twentietli Dynasty
III.

236 240 245

259

Ramses III
Chap. IV.

264

Decline and Fall of the Egyptian Empire.

I.

Section

End

,,

II.

of the Twentieth Dynasty Twenty-first Royal Family Twenty- second, Twenty-third and Twentyfourth rjynasties

269 273 277 281

,, ,,

III.

Ethiopian Dynasty

IV.

The Dodecarchy

The Saite Kings

Chap. V.
Section
,, ,, ,,
, ,

Civilisation,

Manners and Monuments of

289 294 299
301

Egypt.
I.

Social Constitution
Political Organisation

II.

and Administration

...

III.

Laws
Manners and Customs
Writing
Literature and Science Religion

,, ,,

IV. V. VI. VII.

,,VIII. Arts
, ,

IX. Principal Monuments

302 307 317 327 330

BOOK IV. TPIE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS.

Chap.

L The Primitive Chaldean Empire.

I.
,,
,,

Section

II.

The Tigro-Euphrates Basin The Primitive Population of Chalda^a

Origin of the States of Assyria and Chaldaea Nimrod The First Cushite Empire ... Dynasties of the Chalda;an Empire according to Berosus Royal Names supplied by the Inscriptions ... Monuments of the Primitive Chaldean Empire Period of Egyptian Preponderance and of the

339
341

III.

347
351

,,

IV.

,,

,, ,,

V. VI. VII.

353 357

Arab Kings

360


viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PACE

Chap.

II.

The First Assyrian Empire.

Foundation of the First Assyrian Empire Fabulous Stories about that Empire Ninus and Somiramis II. First Assyrian Dynasty III. First Kings of the UjTiasty of Belelaras
I.

Section

,, ,,

364 370
376

,,

IV.

>>

IV. to Binlikhish and Samniuramat (Semiramis) V. Asshur-hk-liish or Sardanapalus Fall of the First Assyrian Empire

From

Asshurnazirjial Sliahiianeser

379

384

Chap.

III.

The Second Assyrian Empire.

I.

Section

Reign of Phul
syrian

Re-establishment of the AsFinal

387 392 398 404 415

Empire

,,
,

II.

Sargon
.Sennacherib

III.

,,

IV. Esarhaddon and Asshur-bani-pal V. End of the Second Assyrian Empire

Fall of

Nineveh

f Chap. IV.
Section
,,
1

Civilisation, Assyria.
1.

Manners and Monuments of

417 426 431
/

Political

III.

Writing IV. Literature and Science V. Religion VI. Arts

II.

and Social Organisation IManners and Customs

i/|/|

452 456

Chap.

V. The New Chaldean

Empire.
468 472 476
4S7

Section I.
II.

Survey of the History of Babylon under the

Supremacy of the Assyrians

,,

,, J5

Nabopolassar III. Nebuchadnezzar V. The Successors of Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian Empire

Fall of

Chap. VI.
,,

Manners and Religion of Babylon.

Manners
11.

Section I.
III.

,,
,,

The Caste of the Chaldceans Commerce of Babylon

,,

IV. Religion V. Cosmogony VL Arts

492 493 495 497 500

505

Index
List of Scripture Texts

509

Quoted Quoted

533
535

List OF Passages from Herodotus

PREFACE.
The
one great
fact of the last fifty years in the scientific

world has

certainly

been the revival of

historical studies,

and especially that conlight into the darkest

quest which has been achieved of the ancient past of the East by

modem

criticism,

which has been

alile

to

throw

recesses of annals long buried in obscurity.

But a short half century ago, little was known of the ancient world beyond the Greeks and Romans. Accustomed to look on these two great nations as the representatives of ancient civilisation, it was easy to ignore all that had taken place beyond the regions of Greece and Italy.
It

was almost agreed

that one entered the

soil

only in setting foot on the

that in this

immense tract Indus, there had once been

territories

domain of positive history, It was known, however, of country, lying between the Nile and the
of Europe.
great centres of civilisation

monarchies
more exten-

embracing vast
sive than our

and innumerable

tribes; capitals

sumptuous as those kings, on which, as some vague traditions said, their proud of our own It was also builders had inscribed the pompous history of their deeds.

modern western

capitals; palaces as

had left behind them mighty Heaps of ruins in the desert, and on the river banks, temples, pyramids, monuments of every kind, covered with inscriptions in strange and unknown characters, and the

known

that these ancient nations of Asia

traces of their passage o'er the earth.

tales of travellers in these countries

all

bore witness to a really great de-

velopment of social culture. But this greatness was to be found only in ruins, in fragmentary stories of Grecian historians, and in some passages in the Bible. And as everything belonging to the primitive eastern world
assumes colossal proportions,
it

was but natural

to infer tliat fiction

occupied a large place in Biblical story, and in the pages of Herodotus. To-day everything is quite changed. In all its branches the science of

unknown, and its discoFrom the great works of the veries have changed the page of history. learned men of the Renaissance, the civilisation of Greece and Rome and yet on that very was supposed to be known to its very base
antiquities has soared to a height previously
;

civilisation

Archseology has been found

to

throw an unexpected

light.

The

study and correct understanding of the ornamented remains, the

history of art, dates, so to speak,

closes the eighteenth,

but from yesterday.

Winckelman

and Visconti inaugurates the present, century. The

PREFACE.
innvimerable painted vases, and nioiuimcnts of every description which

have been and

research

siill

are furnished

by the burial places of Etruria, of

field

Greece, of C'yrcnc, ami of the Crimea, constitute an immense

of

unknown

lifty

years

atjo,

and whicli has prodigiously extended

classical

the horizon of science.

But these advances

in the

domain of the
first

world are nothing

when compared with

the

new

worlds suddenly revealed to our eyes;

with Egypt, openeil up to us

plied remains to fdl the

museums

by the French, and which has supof Europe, and initiate us into the
;

minutest details of the oldest civilisation of the world

with Assyria,

whose monuments, discovered also by a frenchman, have been disinterred from the grave

and open
indication

to our
is

view an

where they have lain for more than 2,000 years, art and culture of which but the faintest
literature.
art,

to

be found in historical
Phoenician

Nor

is

this all.

intermediate between that of Egypt

to
us,

and Assyria, has been revealed

been recovered
us
its

from the catacombs.

the traces of

and invaluable treasures have Aramaaan Syria has given Bold explorers,
too,

ancient inscriptions and memorials.

all

have

made us acquainted with

packed
in the

the various nations so closely

narrow
the

territory of

Asia Minor.
its

Cyprus with
Lycia with

its

strange
peculiar
its

writing and

sculptures of
coins,

temples

its

language,

its

inscriptions,

sepulchral grottoes; Phrygia with

great rock, sculptured bas-reliefs, and the tombs of the kings of the

family of Midas

Arabia contributes

to science ancient

monuments of
Yemen.

times anterior to Islamism, texts engraven by pilgi-ims on the rocks of

Sinai,
let

and the numerous inscriptions which abound

its

in

Nor

Persia be forgotten with the remains of

Sassanian.

Achaemenian and Nor India, where our knowledge has been entirely renewed
kings,

by the study of the Vedas. But it is not only the length of the coui'se that has been increased, the progress of science has been so great that its domain is now also widely extended. Everywhere, by new routes,
enterprising and successful pioneers have pushed their researches,

and
also

thrown

light into the darkest recesses.

Europe

in our

age takes definite

tlie

possession of the world.

What
;

is

true of the events of

day,

is

true in the region of learning

science regains possession of the ancient

world, and of ages long forgotten.

This resuscitation of the

with Eg)'pt.

earliest

epochs of

civilisation

The hand

of Champollion

has

torn

commenced down the veil

which concealed mysterious Egypt from our eyes, and has added lustre to the name of France by the greatest discovery of our age.

Thanks
glyphs.

to him,

we have

at last the

key

to the

enigma of the Hiero-

And

henceforth

we may

tread boldly on solid and well-known

PREFACE.
ground, where those
pitfalls.

xi

who preceded

us

wandered among swamps and

for those

Champollion's discovery has been the starting point

learned and ingenious researches to which

we owe

the restoration ol

Egyptian History.
deeds of the kings

Through

the whole extent of the Nile Valley the

in reply

monuments have been examined, and

they have told us

all

the

who governed Egypt from

many

the most ancient times.

Science has penetrated the dark catacombs where sleep the Pharaohs,

and has

restoi-ed to us

dynasties whose only traces were to be

found in some mutilated remains of the old historian Manetho.

commencement of the

present century,

we knew little beyond

the

At the names

of a few sovereigns, whose reigns were far apart and connected with but

a small number of events, distorted by the statements of credulous Greek

travellers, or

magnified by national vanity.

We

now know

neai'ly the

monarchs who reigned over Egypt during more than years. The art of the Pharaohs has been appi'eciated in all its 4,000 diverse forms, architecture, sculpture, painting; and the law which governed the inspiration of Egyptian genius has been discovered. Their religion, under its double character, sacerdotal and popular, has been studied, and it has been proved that under the strange and confused symbolism which ordained the worship of animals, was hidden a pro-

whole

series of

found theology, which in

its conceptions embraced the entire universe, and was based on the grand idea of the unity of God, the vague and

faint

echo of a primitive revelation.

We

can also form an estimate of

the state of science in this famous nation.

The most important

frag-

ments of

its

literature

have been translated into modern languages, and

In a word, Egypt has completely

in style closely resemble the Bible.

resumed

its

place in positive history, and

we can now

relate its annals

on the authority of original and contemporary documents exactly relate the history of any modem nation.

as

we

The

resurrection of Assyria has been,

if

possible,
like

yet

more
left

extra-

ordinary.

Nineveh and Babylon have

not,

Thebes,

gigantic

ruins above the surface of the ground.

Shapeless masses of rubbish,

now crumbled into mounds, One might then readily have

Mesopotamian
civilisation

are all that remain for travellers to see.

believed that the last vestiges of the great

for ever perished,

Mr. Botta's excavators, and subsequently those of Mr. Layard and Mr. Loftus, opened to the light those majestic sculptures which we admire at
the spades of

had

when

the Louvre and the British

brilliant

Museum guarantees of discoveries still more and extensive, when explorations can be pushed on into all parts of Assyria and Chaldcea. So now those pious kings, who led
;

entire nations into captivity, live again, as

it

were, before our very eyes,

figures

on the

bas-reliefs of their palaces.

These are the

which seem so

xii

PREFACE.
burning words of the

terrible in the

Hebrew
tlic

seers.

We have
wrought

found
idols

again the gates wlicre, to quote the prophet's expression, people passed
like the waters of
tlie

river.

These arc
in a

beautifully

which corniplod the

Jehovah.
life

jieople of Israel,

and caused them so soon to forget

is

There, reproduced
;

thousand diflerent phases,

the daily
llieir

of the Assyinaiis

their religious ceremonies, domestic habits;

splendid furniture, and rich vases.

leaguered

cities,

There are their battles, the bethe war machines that shook the ramparts.
tlie

Innumerable inscriptions cover

that

walls of

the Assyrian edifices

are written in those

have been

laid bare

by excavations.

They

strange cuneiform characters so complicated as to seem likely to baffle

But there is no philological mystery that can defy the methods of modern science. The sacred wiiting of Nineveh and Babylon has been, like that of Egypt, compelled to give up its secrets. The learned labours of Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr.
the sagacity of interpreters.

Hincks, and, above

read

all,

of

M. Oppcrt, have given us the key

to the

graphic system in use on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris.

now

following an

We

established principle

the annals

of the kings

of Assyria and Babylon, engraved on alabaster or impressed on clay,

for the instruction of posterity.

We read

the accounts they themselves

have given of
decipher the

their wars,

their conquests, their craellies.

We

there

official

Assyrian version of events of which the Bible, in

the Books of Kings, gives us the Jewish version; and the comparison of the two, places in the clearest light the incomparable veracity of the

Sacred Volume.

These discoveries
most unexpected
narrow

in Assyrian antiquity

light

on the

origin

impossible that such brilliant

limits of Assyria.
art

have thrown invaluable and and progress of civilisation. It was culture shoidd remain imprisoned in the
so

And

we

find, in fact, that the influence

of

Assyrian

and

civilisation followed

everywhere the conquering Nine-

vite amis.

To

the east and north she

made her

influence

felt in

Media

and

Persia, where,

combining with the subtle and delicate genius of the

Persians under the Achssmenians, she gave birth to the marvellous

creations of Persepolis.

The

origin of Grecian art, vainly sought in

Egypt,

is

found at Nineveh. found

Assyrian influence penetrated into Syria,

;

Asia Minor and the Islands of the MediteiTanean

cities

through the

C^'-'^ek

of the coast

it

its

way

into the heart of the Hellenic

tribes.

The
and

early

Greek sculptors thus received the

works
for

inspirations

and precepts of

sculptors of the Assyrian school,

selected Asiatic

who approached them step by step, their models. From Asia Minor this init

fluence passed with the Lydian colonists into Italy, where

formed the

base of the development of the Etruscan

civilisation,

while

this, in its

tum,

PREFACE.
furnished to that of

xiii

Rome the elements

of

its

primitive giMndeur.

Thus

are explained the monuments, the luxury, and the riches of the cities of

which for so long a time excited the fierce desires of the rude sons of Romulus. Thus the history of the oldest empires in the world, of those birth-places of civilisation, is rendered henceforward accessible to Europe,
Etraria,

under conditions now admitted to be the only guarantees for real historical
study

that
can
left

is,

with the assistance and guidance of original documents.

ajipreciate at their true value the ideas

We
have

now

used in even the best of them

us of nations

which the writers of

falsified

crude and con-

classical antiquity

whose languages they did not know, and of an

historical tradition

probably already

when

they gathered the

few fragments which they have preserved. Nevertheless, we both may and ought still to speak with respect of tJTC accuracy with which Herodotus has related what was told him by the Egyptians and Persians, and with sympathy for the zeal which Diodorus Siculus has shown for learned researches. We are also bound to accept those traces of

manners and customs which they have a whole the facts which they ixlate, and
to give a

collected.
to give

But to reproduce as them as an account of

is

the chain of principal events in Egyptian or in Assyrian History,

not
it

summary

of that history suitable for

young people,

for

would convey an absolutely untrue idea. The stories of Herodotus and Diodorus about Egypt and Assyria are no more a real histoiy than one of our own country would be which
suppressed the invasion of the
renaissance which
barbarians,

the feudal period,

the

made

Philip Augustus the

predecessor of Charle-

magne, and Napoleon, the son of Louis XIV., and which explained
the financial difficulties of Philippe le Bel by the disaster of the battle

of Pavia.
Josephus,

Nevertheless, suclr, with

is

some

corrections

borrowed from

the character of the majority of the standard works.

Doubtless there are some who, to a certain extent, have advanced with
the progress of science, and have eliminated gross errors. point to which knowledge has advanced

But

at the

when the history of

Oriental

nations can be related in a connected and precise manner, and furnishes

which can be no longer passed by, on the origin of our arts and it is not sufficient to suppress a few incongruities. There is no longer any reason to leave great gaps, to ignore facts of the highest interest, and to preserve, by the side of important rectifications, errors which falsify the general result. It is therefore indispensable to introduce amongst us, and into standard works, a complete reform in all
lights
civilisation,

that relates to the

first

period of ancient histoiy, to the annals of the

first

ancient empires of the East, to the

dawn

of civilisation.

The immense

conquests of science must be

made common

property.

xiv
their j^riiicipal resvills
wliicli

PREFACE.
must ho made part of thai sum
iynorc, and wliich
is
t)f

knowlcdiie

of

no one can be permitted to At ilie present day, one cannot, without unpareducation. donal'le ii^noranco, adhere to sucli a history as has l)een written l)y good
all real

the foundation

old Rollin, and

professor, or

all

the tribe of his followers.

\Vhal would globe

?

l)e

said of

any

man

of the world,

who would now

habitable

s])cak of four elements,

or of the

three

quarters of the

who
yet

would with
it is

Ptolemy, make the sun move round the world

this style that the great majority

And

much

in

of our historical works speak even

now

on the subject of Egypt and Assyria. The absolute necessity of the reform of which we speak must, therefore, be olivious to every one. There is no one master of science but has loudly proclaimed it, and the
opinion
is

becoming general.

But the

historical' archaeological sciences

now

require popular works, manuals such as have been produced in great

quantities for the physical sciences,

and have

carried ideas into every

grade of society.
Tlie
results

of the wonderful progress in antiquities and Oriental

fifty

philology during the last

years have not been sufllcienlly

commu-

nicated to the general public.

They have

to

be sought out

in special,

voluminous, and costly works, written in a style so learned as to

make

them

available for only a small number.

How often have we

is

not heard

in the world,

and from the cleverest men of education, "Yes, we know

the starting-point

that primitive Oriental History, that history whicli

for every other,

has been completely reconstructed, has assumed an

;

entirely

new

aspect in the last half-century

all

but where shall

we

find,
is

brought together and clearly expressed,

the facts which science

now
the

able to establish?"

Manual now put

;

the attempt

besides

we have attempted to fill in Doubtless, we are not the first to make forth. M. Henry de Riancy, who, in his " Histoire du
This
is

the gap

Monde," has embodied some of the results of modem researches, two distinguished members of the University, M. Guillemin, rector of the Academy of Nancy, and M. Robiou, professor of history, have attempted
to

introduce

into public instruction the true histoiy of the

ancient empires of the East.

These books have paved the way for ns, and on more than one point we have followed their lead. Bat in spite of all their merit, they do They still present serious denot seem to us to fulfil all requirements. ficiencies, and useful and ample as they are for students of public schools, they are not so for men of the world and professors, to whom they do
not supply sufficient means for rectifying previous impressions.
It is

but

too easily perceived that the authors have but partly studied the sciences,

the

results of which they profess to give

that their knowledge on some

PREFACE.
points
over,
is

XV

second-hand, and not always from the best sources.

Morehas

these

books have been published several years

science

advanced

in the

meanwhile, and they are now out of date.

hope we may state confidently tliat the reader will find in the Manual a complete rhwne of the state of knowledge at the present time saving only those imperfections which no man and ourselves less than any other, can hope to avoid. The science whose resvalts I
present

We

have

set forth is

one in which an

illustrious fatlier,

wliose labours I

attempt to continue, has educated me, and which forms the aim and
occupation of

my

life.

There
I

is

no one branch comprised

in the pre-

sent publication to

which

have not devoted direct and profound study.

In the history of every nation,

authorities

we have

taken as guides

those

who command

the greatest respect, those whose opinions

give law to the learned world.

For that of the

all

Israelites during the

periods of the Judges and of the Kings, in

tion of Egyptian

cases

where the interpreta-

and Assyrian inscriptions has not given new and unexpected light, our guides have been iM. Munl'C, removed far too early from those Biblical studies in which he was an acknowledged master in our country, and M. Ewald, in whose writings so many brilliant flashes of genius and profound poetic sentiment shine out among ideas For Egypt, we have followed the traces often rash and capricious. of the disciples of Champollion, of De Ronge and Mariette, in France ; and Birch, in England. But Lepsius and Brugsch, in Germany have used the great Histoire d'Egypt of M. Brugsch, and chiefly we still more the excellent abridgment composed by M. Mariette, for the
;

schools of Egypt, a real masterpiece of historic sense, clear explanation,

prudent method, and substantial conciseness.

this last

We

have borrowed
tlie

entire pages from

book, particularly in relation to

dynasties
to

of the ancient and middle empires, for

we have nothing
better.

to

add

what

the learned director of excavations to the Egyptian government has

said,

and we could not possibly say

it

The

writings

of Sir

H.

Rawlinson, Dr. Ilincks, and, above

Assyria and Babylonia, of which
parative statement,

all,

of

M. Oppert, have

furnished us

with the elements necessary for the re-construction of the annals of

unfortunately

of the historical inscriptions of

inserted in the text, are
Orientalist

M. Oppert has commenced a comThe translations still incomplete. the kings of Nineveh, which we have
to

borrowed from the works of that eminent

whom

France has brought froni Germany,

;

make him our

fellow countryman
orig^inal

but

we have

ourselves compared the whole with the

monuments, and

in offering

them

to our readers,

we do not

hesitate "jurare in verba magistri."'

Our own immortal Eugene Burnouf, M.

Spiegel, the

Gemran com-

xvi

PREFACE.
finally,

mentator of the Zend Avesta, Wcstergaard, and,

llic

M. Oppert,

are

authorities to

whom we
and

have had recourse on the subject of the

Lastly, as to Phoe-

antiquities,
nicia, the

doctrines,

institutions of Persia.

admirable studies of Morris have been, naturally, our starting-

point

but

we have
tiie

amiilificd or modified his results with the assistance

of the writings of

Luynes, M. Munk, M. de Saulcy, Dr. A. Count de Vogue. The summary, then, of the works of the mastere of science, of the conquests of European learn-

Dukede

Levy

of Breslau, and the

ing during the last

fifty

years in the

field

of Oriental literature, forms

its

the founilation of our book,

and constitutes
it

chief value

but, in

these studies, which are peculiarly our own,

has been impossible to

Li this Manual will be

confine ourselves to the mere part of a copyist.

found a large mass of personal researches, and also some assertions for

which we must be held personally responsible.

always taken care to indicate our
opinions.

But we have at least own hypotheses and individual

One

last

word on the
book.

principles

and ideas which are reflected

but

on every page of
I

this

am

a Christian, and proclaim

it

loudly

my faith

fears

none of

the discoveries of criticism

when they

are true.

son of the Church,

submissive in

all

things necessary, I for that very reason claim from

scientific liberty.

her with even greater ardour the rights of

just because I

And

it

is

am

a Christian that I regard myself as being

spirit
faith.

more

in

accord with the true meaning and

of science than are those

who

have the misfortune to be without

of Bossuet.
I see in

In history, I
ages and

am of the

school

the annals of humanity the development of a

providential plan running

society.

through

all

all

vicissitudes

of

In

it

I recognise the designs of

God, permitting the

will.

liberty of

man, and

infallibly

doing His work by their free hands, almost always

without their knowledge, very often against their

every Christian,
all

For me,
for,

as for

ancient history
of,

is

the preparation

history the consequence

the

modem

Divine

sacrifice of Calvary.

for liberty

that, faithful to the traditions of my father, I have a passion and for the dignity of man. Thus it is that I have a horror of despotism and oppression, that I have no admiration for those great

Thus

it is

scourges of humanity, called conquerors

historian
Sesostris,

elevates

to the

honours of an apotheosis

those men whom the materialist be they called

Caesar,

Sennacherib,

Nebuchadnezzar,
all, it is

Louis

XIV.,

or

Napoleon.
doctrine

Thus, above

that I

am

almost invincibly attached

to the doctrine of the constant

unknown

to
is

and unlimited progress of humanity paganism, a doctrine born of Christianity, and

whose whole law Perfect. "

found in the words of the evangelist,

"Be ye

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.

This Manual,

as originally published last year in Paris, found greater

I had ventured to anticipate. Two editions and a version, published in Germany, proved to me that the Work supplied what had been long and generally required. I am also especially proud and thankful to acknowledge the kind reception the Manual met with from men of the higliest authority on the subject of historical study the encouragement which such men as Guizot, Mignet, Vitet, and Guigniaut have given to my attempt to introduce to the general public, and for educational purposes, the results of those

favour with the public than

sold in a few months;

discoveries in Oriental Archccology

entirely remodelled Ancient History.

which have

in the last fifty years

The Work, too, has been honoured by the award of the prize of the Academic Fran^aise, and is thus stamped with the approval of the
highest possible authority.

In England the

Work was most

favourably received, and in some

reviews the publication of an English translation was recommended.

Such encouragement imposed on me the duty of leaving nothing undone that may render my Book as deserving as possible of the approval it had met with; to revise it carefully, and to correct and complete it as
far as possible.

This I have endeavoured to do in the present Edition, which has been

entirely revised, in

many
which

parts re-written,

much
in

larger than the original work, from

respects, to
first
it is

and so extended as to be which it differs considerably

some
In the

desirable I should refer.

place, I have deferred to the opinion expressed

persons, that the absence of references to authorities

as the reader

was unable
in the

to refer to original

by many was a serious defect works, and to verify the

statements

made

Book.

It was,

however, found impossible in

every case to refer to authorities in notes, as the size of the book would

have been enormously increased;

have therefore confined myself,

xviii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO TITE EXGLISH EDITION.

facts, to prefixing to eacli

except for very inijiortant

chapter a

list

of

every book from which information has been drawn.

The

chief

fault,

liowcvcr,
" in
it

found

witli

tlie

" Manuel
il

d'Histoire

Ancicnno dc TOricnt
nor perfectly
instance,

its

original fomi was,

tlial

had no distinctly
chapter for

defined cliaracter; that

was neither a book

entirely suited to pupils,

first

fitted for teachers.

Some

parts, the

were too elementary, and others too much in detail and too scientific, to be comprehended by children. This fault I have endeavoured As now puljlished, the Manual is intended for teachers, for to repair.
senior pupils, and for

men

of education

who

desire to

keep pace with

the advance of Oriental historical studies.

The

Fii-st

Book

is

entirely

new

in this, as a preface to the others, I

have endeavoured

to collect the small

number of
and by

facts at present ascer-

tained as to the condition of the primitive races of men.

As

required

both by the principles of sound

criticism,

my own
and
liave

conviction, I

have given the

first

jilace to the Biblical narration,

appended

to I

this the parallel traditions preserved

among

other ancient nations.

have next given a rapid sketch of the discoveries of prehistoric archaeology, bearing on facts totally apart from those contained in the Bible,

and giving us an insight into the daily conditions of the life of the first men. And this book closes with an enumeration of the facts relating generally to the races of mankind, and to the principal families of
languages

a necessaiy introduction to the historical narrative.

In the Second Book, on the history of the Israelites, little change has been made ; it has been slightly expanded, and advantage has been taken of the admirable work in which M. Oppert has definitely fixed
the chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah, by means of solar

and lunar

eclipses,

mentioned

in the

Assyrian inscriptions.
:

In the history of the Israelites tw^o things run side by side

constant, direct,

one, the

and supernatural interference of the Almighty with the

destiny of that nation to

whom He had entrusted

the sublime mission of

to

preserving religious truth, and from which the

Redeemer was
it

come

the other, events arising from ordinary and natural causes apart from this
supernatural interference.

In writing Sacred History,

would be
;

natural to give prominence to this Divine government of Israel

in introducing the Israelites into a picture of the

but

whole

civilisation of

Ancient Asia,

it

was necessary

to look

more

at the

merely human aspect

losing sight of

of their history, without, however, for a

moment

the

entii-ely exceptional character of that history.

The Third Book, on Egypt, has been only

Funereal Ritual, or Book of the Dead
corrected.
;

slightly modified.

Some

few additions have been made, amongst others, a short analysis of the

and a few errors have been

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION,

The Fourth Book, however, on

xix

the History of the Assyrians and

Babylonians, has been doubled in size, and has been entirely re-written. In the past year science has continued to advance, and I have been

compelled to keep pace with

able to bring a larger

its

progress.

have, moreover, especially

devoted myself to the study of Assyrian

texts,

and have therefore been

amount of knowledge to bear on Assyrian history, add translations of some hitherto unpublished documents. As the greater part of these translations are from tal;lets in the British
and
to

Museum,

have been careful

to insert their distinctive

marks, in order

that Assyriologists ro.ay

compare

my

versions with the originals.

The two

following Books treat, the one of the Annals of the

Medes

and Persians to the time of the first disagreement between the Greeks and Darius, son of Hystaspes ; the other, of the History of the Phoenicians to the period of the
essential
first

rise

of the Carthaginian power.

portion of the work, but
it

No
has

change has been made

in this

been

carefully revised,

and has received numerous additions and correcthe nations of

tions.

The Seventh and Eighth Books are entirely new, Book

whom

they treat were not mentioned in the original editions.

The Seventh

contains the History of Ancient Arabia, considered chiefly with

its

reference to

intermediate position between the civilisations of India

it

and of Western Asia;

is

founded on the admirable work of M.

rise

Caussin de Percival, on the History of the Arabs previous to the

of

Islamism, and on the newly ascertained facts from the monumental

texts of

Egypt and Assyria,

as well as from the ancient inscriptions of

Yemen,

The
be

absence of any history of India in

my

original

work was

uni-

versally regarded as an omission, as leaving a vacant space requiring to

filled.

India no doubt had no political relations with Western Asia,

but was, nevertheless, not entirely isolated from the nations bordering

on the Mediterranean.

From

the time of Darius that country

was

brought into relations with Persia, and from the time of Alexander
with Greece; moreover, Arian India exercised too great an influence on
the progress of the

human mind

in periods of

remote antiquity to permit

us to omit her entirely in a general view of the great ancient civilisations of Asia.
I could not but

acknowledge the

justice

of this criticism; and the

History of India forms the Eighth Book of this Manual

little

book a

longer than the others on account of the importance of the subject,

and founded on the successive labours of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke, Schlegel, Eugene Burnouf, Lassen, Max Mliller, and Weber. With India I have ended. I was urged to add a chapter on the early

XX

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.

;

Annals of Cliina

hut

in

the

first

place I have not considered myself

in the second,
it

competent to deal with the subject; and

appeared to

me

China has always been so completely isolated from the rest of it could claim no place in a book on the subject of civilisations that have influenced, even indirectly, our own.
that

the world that

This English edition has had the advantage of

my

latest revisions,

and

in

one or two instances includes discoveries made too

late for inser-

tion in the Frcncli work.

THE
S>tudenfs

Manual of Oriental

History.

BOOK
CHAPTER

I.

PRIMITIVE TIMES,
I.

THE BIBLE NARRATIVE. XL Authority, Genesis Chapters

I.

Section
I.

I.

The Human Race before the Deluge.

precise and consecutive history of the
first

We have no

men, or of the
saci-ed story,

origin of our species, but that of

Holy

Scripture.

This

even without the assured and solemn authority which it derives from the inspired character of the book in which it is found, would always

form in sound criticism the base of all history for, merely considered from a human point of view, it contams the most ancient tradition as to the first days of the human race, the only one which has not been disfigured by the introduction of fantastic myths of disordered
;

imagination

run wild.

The
to all

was
than

originally

common

chief features of that tradition, which mankind, and which the special care of

Providence has preserved in greater purity among the chosen people among other races, are preserved, though changed, in countries

far distant

munication

from each other, and whose inhabitants have had no comfor thousands of years. And the only clue which can guide
is

us through the labyrinth of these scattered fragments of tradition,

the

Bible Story.
its

This

it is

to
;

which the historian must

it

first
it

turn, recognising

distinctive character

whilst for the Christian

in

has a dogmatic

value, permitting him, indeed, to interpret

conformity with the light

furnished by the progress of science, but at the same time giving

fixed point

him a

round which

to

group the

results of

human

investigation.

The

historical

interpretation

of this narrative presents, able and

serious difficulties.

The most

however, orthodox theologians have

repeatedly discussed the degree of latitude which

may

be allowed for

2
exegesis.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

In veiy

many

places

it

is

impossil)le to

know

absolutely

how
that

far that allegorical style of language,

which

is

so largely employed in the

Bible, has been used

in

these passages.

We

may remark

also,

gaps which appear

scientific

in the

Bible story, leave open a veiy large field for

Our high respect for the authority of the sacred speculation. must prevent us from seeking in them what they were not books intended to contain, what never entered the minds of those who wrote under the divine inspiration. Moses has never pretended to write a complete histoiy of primitive man, and certainly not of the origin and
progi-ess of material civilisation.

He

has confined himself to recording

a few of the essential and principal features of that history, in a form His object has been to suitable to the people whom he addressed. elucidate the descent of the Patriarchs who were chosen by God to

presene, from age to age, the primitive revelations, and above all, to show, in opposition to the monstrous cosmogonies of the nations who surrounded the Hebrews, those great tniths which idolatiy had obscured, the creation of the world from nothing by the mere will of an Almighty being, the unity of the human race spnmg from one couple, the fall of that race, the origin of evil in the world, the promise of a Redeemer,
and,
finally,

the constant interference of Providence in the affairs of

the world.

and its agreement with the discoveries of the natural sciences, are things beyond the scope of our work. It is only from the moment when God, having created the world and all the beings which inhabit it, put the seal to his work by creating man, that we shall take up the stoiy of the first book of the Bible, " Genesis," so
2.

The

story of creation

itself,

called in Europe, from a Greek word, which signifies "beginning," because this book commences with the history of the creation of the " God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeUniverse. let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over and ness the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
:

So God created every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. of God created he him ; male and man in his own image, in the image female created he them." " And the Lord God formed man of the dust
of the ground,

and breathed into his

nostrils the breath of life

and

man became
The
that

a living soul."

story of the fall of the first human pair immediately succeeds of their creation. The father of all mankind, Adam (whose name in the Semitic languages means "Man" /ar excellence), created

by God in a state of absolute innocence and happiness, disobeyed the Lord by his presumption in the delicious gardens of Eden where he had at first been placed, and this disobedience condemned him and his race to pain, grief, and death. God had created him for work, as the inspired book expressly says, but it was in expiation of his

BEFORE THE DELUGE.

fall

that his

work became

painful

face shalt thou eat bread," said the

still

and difficult. "In the sweat of thy Lord to him, and this condemnation

rests upon all men. This is how the book of Genesis recounts the temptation and fall, the consequences of which have fallen on all the descendants of our " Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast first parents of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the
:

woman. Yea, hath God

garden.

said,

Ye
:

shall not eat of every tree of the

And

the

woman

said unto the serpent.

We may

eat of the
is

frmt of the trees of the garden

but of the

fruit

of the tree which

in

the midst of the garden (the tree of the knowledge of good and e\il) God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest

ye die.
:

die

for

And the serpent said unto the woman. Ye shall God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
the

not surely

then your
evil.

eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and

and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her ; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig
that the tree
for food,
;

And when

woman saw

was good

leaves together and

made themselves

aprons."
says

"Prodigious,

ovenvhelming
;

truth,"

Chateaubriand,

"man

dying, poisoned with the fruit of the tree of

tasted of the tree of

life. Man lost, for having knowledge for having dared too well to know Should we suppose a prohibition from God, both good and e\Tl. relative to any other desire of the soul, how could the wisdom, the depth of the pro^-idence of the Most High be ^-indicated. It would then be only a caprice unworthy of the Deity, and no moral lesson

would

restdt
is

from Adam's disobedience.

As

it

is,

aU the

history of

the world

the consequence of the law imposed on our

first

parents.

The

secret of the moral

and

political existence of nations,

the pro-

foundest mysteries of the

of that wonderful,
3.

human

heart, are contained in the tradition

that fatal tree."

The
it

species,

Bible assigns no precise date to the origin of the human It has in reality no gives no positive time for that event.

chronology for the early epochs of man's existence, neither for that which extends from the creation to the deluge, nor for that which

The dates which reaches from the deluge to the call of Abraham commentators have attempted to fix are purely arbitrary, and have
no dogmatic authority. They belong to the domain of historical hypothesis, and one might mention a hundred attempts to make the What alone the sacred books calculation, each with a different result. state, in which science is in complete agreement with them, is that the appearance of man on the earth (however remote the date may be) is B 2

4
recent,

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

when
contrasted witli
;

llic

innncnsc (himtion of
of

llic

geological

periods of creation

and that

llic anli([iiity

many thousands
in

of years,

which some
traditions,
is

peojile, as for instance the J'^gyptians,

Chaldaans, Indians
their

and Chinese, have self-complacently claimed

entirely fabulous.

mythological

Equally useless, equally devoid of solid foundation, as are these calculations regardingthe date of man's creation, would be the attempt to deter-

mine from the Bible the exact place of the cradle of our species, or of the garden of Eden. The sacred story furnishes no precise indications on The most learned and orthodox commentators of the holy that point.
books have left the question undecided. Everything bids us imitate their reserve and hold the common opinion which places in Asia the origin of the first human family, and the source of all civilisation. 4. Adam and Eve (Chavah) the first human couple who came from the hands of God, had two sons, Cain and Abel (Habel).* They led, the one an agricultural, the other a pastoral life, the origin
of which modes of

humanity.

life the Bible thus places at the very first footstep of Cain killed his brother Abel, being jealous of the blessings

with which the Lord had recompensed his piety, but became an exile in the despair of his remorse, and retired with his family to the east of

Eden, where he built the born he called "Enoch."

first

city,

which

after the

name

of his

first-

God had

created

man

with

gifts

of

mind

and body fitted to enable him to accomplish the object of his existence, and consequently to form regular and civilised societies. The book of Genesis attributes to the family of Cain the first invention of the indusTo Enoch, son of Cain, was born, it is said, in the fourth trial arts. generation, Lamech, who in his turn had many sons. Jabal, "the father, of such as dwell in tents and of such as have cattle ;" Jubal the inventor of music, Tubalcain the discoverer of the art of casting and working in metals, and lastly a daughter Naamah, inventor of that of spinning the wool of the flocks, and weaving the thread into cloth.
(This
last tradition is

not found in the Bible, but

is

mentioned

in the

Jerusalem Talmud

as a very ancient

Jewish legend.)

* These names have meanings in the Semitic languages, as have all those names applied in the Bible narrative to the first ancestors of our race ; they are in reality descriptive epithets which express the part played, and the position assumed, by each person in the original family. Adam, as we have already said, means "Man," Eve "Life," "because Cain signifies she was the mother of all living," says the sacred text. "Creature," "Shoot." Habel is the word which in the most ancient Semitic idioms expressed the idea of " Son," and is preserved in the Assyrian and lastly, Seth, as the Bible expressly says, is " Substitute," whom God had given to his parents in place of the much loved son they had lost.
;


THE DELUGE.
The
5

Bible ascribes to I.amech the origin of those sangiiinary customs of revenge which played so great a part in the life of ancient nations ; "Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice ye
' ;

wives of Lamech, hearken unto

wound, and a young man

fold, truly

in

my speech 1 my hurt if Cain

: :

would
shall

slay a

man

in

my
_

be avenged seven-

Lamech seventy and sevenfold.' afterwards gave him 5. Adam had a third son named Seth, and God a great many more children. Seth lived 912 years and had a numerous family, who, whilst all other men gave themselves up to idolatry and vice of every kind, preserved faithfully, down to the time of the deluge,
those religious traditions of the primitive revelation, which after that

"*

event passed into the race of Shem.

The descendants of Seth were Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, who walked with God 365 years, and "was not, for God took him," Methuselah who of all men lived the longest life, 969 years, Lamech, and lastly Noah, who was the father of Shem, Ham and
Japhet.

Each of

these three

was the head of a numerous

family.

Section
I.

IEThe

Deluge.

In the meanwhile the corruption of mankind went on increasing and passed all bounds. Their iniquities were such that the Lord was angered and determined to exterminate their race. The just Noah, descendant of " (Gen. vi. 8). God Seth, alone "found grace in the eyes of the Lord He shut him, and his family caused him to build an ark into which and seven couples of every kind of animal clean and unclean, and then the deluge commenced. " The fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven opened, and rain was upon the earth And the waters increased and bare forty days and forty nights and the waters prethe ark, and it was lift up above the earth up exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were vailed fifteen cubits upward did the under the whole heaven were covered
. .
.

And all flesh died waters prevail, and the mountains .were covered. both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, that moved upon the earth, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in Noah only remained alive, and they that were the dry land died
. .
.

which the learned De Sacy concurs is, " Ecoutez ma J'ai tue un voix, femmes de Lamech, soyez attentives a mes paroles parce qu'il m'avait blesse, un jeune homme parce qu'il m'avait homme Cain sera venge soixante et dix fois et Lamech septante fait une plaie. Tr. fois sept fois."
this passage

* Genesis

iv.

23, 24, marginal reading.

The

author's rendering of

6 with him
in

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlic

ark.
ilays "

And

the waters prevailed

vii.

hunilrcd and

fifty

(Gen.

il,

12,

17,

upon tlie 1924).

earlli

an

There are some observations which it is in the liighesl degree important to make on this narrative. The distinction between clean and uticlcan animals proves that the species taken into the ark were only those useful to man, and capable of domestication, for to these only, does the division into two such classes, apply among the Hebrews. The manner in which the deluge was brought about, an idea quite distinct from the fact itself, is related in accordance with the crude notions on physical science which were current with the contemporaries of Moses ; and here the wise words of one of the most eminent catholic theologians of Germany, Dr. Reusch, are particularly applicable, "God gave to the writers of the Bible a supernatural inspiration, but the object for which this
supernatural inspiration was given was, as in
all

revelation, the teaching

of religious truth, not of secular science; and

we may, without trenching

weakening the truth and consequently in

on the respect due

to these sacred writers, without

of divine inspiration, freely admit that in secular,

poraries

physical science, these writers were not above the level of their contem-

and of their Moses was not raised by revelation above the intellectual level of his time and further, nothing proves to us that it was possible for him to raise himself above that level by study or thought."* Finally, the expressions used by the author of the book of Genesis, if interpreted by comparison with other similar expressions, will not
;

that they were liable to the errors of their time

.

nation

necessarily lead us to suppose that he intended to

mean

that the deluge

and in the literal sense of the word, universal. The words, "all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered," and "all flesh died that moved upon the earth," are not stronger than the words of the same author, And the famine was over all the " face of the earth ;" "and all countries came to Egypt for to buy corn "This day will I begin to put the dread of thee (Gen. xli. 56, 57). and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven "

was

really,

'

'

(Deut.

ii.

25).

It is quite clear that

the expressions in these last three passages are

not to be understood

literally, that

Moses did not intend

to

convey the

idea that Joseph's famine extended to China, or that the red

men

of

America were
of the deluge.

to

be

in fear of the

Jews.

And we may

without violence

to the sacred text extend the

We"

shall see as

same limited interpretation to the account we proceed whether the limitation

living thing,

should be carried even farther.

2.

"And God

remembered Noah, and every

and

all

the

La

Bible

et la NatiiTe,

French Translation,

p. 27.


THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
cattle that

was with him in the ark, and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged. The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained and the waters returned from off the earth continually and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested And it upon the mountains of Ararat came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made and he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from oft the face of the ground but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days ; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark and the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive ler.f pluckt off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the
;
: . . . . .
.

earth " (Gen.

viii.

4, 10).*

On

quitting the ark with his three sons,

Shem,

Ham and Japhet,

and

their wives,

Noah

sacrificed to the Lord,

who made

a covenant with
posterity
after the

him and his race, and commenced to cultivate the earth. His was very numerous, for he lived three hundred and fifty years
deluge, and died at the age of nine hundred and
fifty

years.

Section HI.
1.

The Confusion of Tongues.

multiplied rapidly
;

The

family of

Noah

but from this time the

life

of

man was much

Shem,

shortened, and as a rule did not exceed our present

nevertheless, (and probably also his brothers) lived
;

average.

on

during

many

centuries

and according

to the testimony of

Holy

Scrip-

ture, the family

whence Abraham sprung (thanks no doubt to the temperate habits of patriarchal life) enjoyed up to his time far more than

the ordinary length of

2.

human

life.

All

men

being of one family

still

used the same language.

generations after the deluge the mass of the descendants of Noah,

Some who

had become very numerous, had fixed their dwellings on the immense plains watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, in the countiy originally called Shinar, that is in the Semitic idiom, "the land of the two rivers." Proud of their numbers and strength, they believed themselves all powerful, and their insolent audacity led them to defy God himself.

On

the Bible narrative of the Deluge and

et la geologic.

its

relations with the

facts of science, see the recent essay of the

Abbe Lambert, Le Deluge

Mosaiq2u\ Hiistoire,

Paris, 1868.


ANCIENT HISTORY
said one to anotlici-,

OI'

riir:

EAST.

"They

'Go

to, let

us build us a city and a tower

xi.

whose lop may reach unto heaven,'" (Gen.

their |iride

4).

But (lod puuislied

by confusint^ tlieir laiii^uage. No longer al)Ie to understand one another, they were conipelleil to dis]ierse, each family or group of families, carrying with it the new language, from that time to become
its

own, and whence the

itiioms, science

now

attempts to classify accordthe three great

in parts of

ing to their analogies, are descended.

races

Thus were formed

in

who have peopled and in Africa, of Shem

the world
in Asia,

the children of Ham

Asia

and of Japhet

Europe.

Tlic

Tower

remained unfinished, and was called Babel, that is, "confusion," on * account of the confusion of languages which took place there.
to

The confusion of tongues and general dispersion of mankind are be placed, according to the natural sense of a passage in Scripture which has afforded much exercise to the sagacity of commentators, in
3.
fifth

the time of Peleg the

ration of that event.

from Shem, and about the time of

his birth,

because that name, which means division, was given him in

commemo-

Nothing, however, in the Bible forbids us to suppose that some families had already separated themselves from the mass of the descendants of Noah, and had gone to a distance and formed
colonies apart from the

common

centre, while the gi^eater

still

number of

the families destined to repeople the earth

remained vmited.

CHAPTER
Chief
atitJiorities.

II.

TRADITIONS PARALLEL TO THE BIBLE STOR Y.

Buttmann, Alythologie oder gesainvielte AbhaitdSagen des Altert/mms, vol. i. De Beauvoir Priaulx. Qitastiones Mosaica; or, the Book of Genesis compared with the remai7is of ancient religions. London, 1842. Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol. i. L'Abbe Darras, Histoire de VEglise, vol. i. Luken, Traditions de Vhitmanitetraduit far Vander Hcegen, Bruxelles, 1862. De Rougemont, Le Peiiple primitif vol. i.
lungeti iiber die

Ph.

Section

I.

The Creation The Fall and the

Antediluvian Patriarchs.

tale

The Bible narrative, which we now resume, is not one isolated unconnected with the traditions of other nations, and proceeding only from the pen of Moses. It is on the contrary', as we have already
I.

said, the

most complete and authentic fomi of a grand primitive

tradi-

* See

page 23.

TRADITIONS OF VARIOUS NATIONS.

tion,

which can be traced back

has originally been

carried all surface of the earth.

and been common over the world, by the dispersion of these races on the
to the earhest ages of humanity, to all

races

and

all

people, and

In his narrative of this history the

Hebrew

legis-

lator has faithfully reproduced the ancient memories preserved from age to age among the Patriarchs, and, Ijy a special dispensation of Providence, favoured by the isolated and nomadic life led by the family of

Abraham,
nations.

less

corrupted

among them than among

by the

the sun-ounding

He
;

has, assisted

light of inspiration, restored their true

character to facts elsewhere frequently obscured by polytheism and

idolatry
but,

as St. Augustine has said, without attempting to

make

the

Hebrews

a nation of scholars, either in ancient histoiy, or in physics

Let us now seek in various parts of the world, among people spread over the most distant latitudes, the scattered fragments ot this primitive tradition, which the Mosaic narrative has taught us how

and geology.

to piece together.

We

shall find in

one place or another

all its essential features,

even

those parts of the tradition that are difficult to understand

literally,

and where we may be allowed to suppose allegorical and figurative expressions. But the search presents difficulties, and must necessarily be restricted by the severest rules of criticism. Otherwise we may be in danger of receiving, like some indiscreetly zealous defenders of Holy Scripture, legends arising from more or less direct communication, from a sort of infiltration of the Mosaic narrative, in place of those ancient and genuine traditions which coincide in a most striking manner with the sacred story. It is necessary then before all, and for our greater security, to leave out everything that comes to us from nations on whose traditions, Jewish, Christian, or even Moslem writings, may be
suspected of having exercised an influence.
traditions of proved antiquity founded
It
is

necessaiy to select

on ancient written

monuments

and when savage nations are in question, who have no books, to admit only such as have been collected by witnesses worthy of entire belief, and prior to the arrival of any missionary. 2. And first, among many people, we find the idea that man was formed of the dust of the earth. The Greeks in their legends represented Prometheus as playing the part of a demiurgus or secondary Creator, who moulded from clay the first individuals of our species, and gave them life by means of the fire which he stole from heaven. In the cosmogony of Peru the first man created by the Divine power was Among the tribes of North called Alpa Camasca " animated earth." America, the Mandans believed that the Great Spirit fonned two figures of clay, which he dried and animated by the breath of his mouth, the one received the name of the " first man," the other that of "companion." The great God of Otaheite " Toeroa " made man of

lo

ANCIENT HISTORY OF TIIK EAST.

llie

red c.-wth; nud

iiilhiLMices,

Dyacks of Borneo, stubhornly opposed

to nil

Moslem
lieen

repeated from j^eneration lo generation, that

earth.
is

man had

formed of

The

religion of Zoroaster

the only one

among

the elaborate re-

whieh admits the creation of man by the exercise of the almighty power of a iicrsonal tlod, distinct from Tiie fundamental ideas of the pantheistic and primordial matter. emanative theories which were the l)asis of all religion in Chakhva and
ligious sy.slems of the ancient worUI

in Egypt, as well as in India, left everything uncertain as to the creation

of mankind.

Men,

as well as

all

other created beings, were supposed to have

issued from the very substance of the Deity

a substance

hardly dis-

tinguished from the matter of the world and they came into being spontaneously, as successive emanations were developed, not by a free

and predetennined action of creative will and those who held this faith gave themselves little trouble to define, except under a symbolical and mythological form, the why and wherefore of the emanation. 3. Zoroastrian Mazdeism alone, among the nations of the ancient world, preserved the idea of the original sin and of the fall of the human The sacred book called Bundehesh contains a story of the temprace.
;

tation of the

first

human

pair,

almost exactly like that of the

Bilile, in

which

all

the essential features are found, even to that of the tempter

;

and nevertheless it is no more having assumed the form of a serpent Bundehesh has borrowed from the Bible, than the possible that the We shall give this story further on in Bible from Zoroastrian religion.
that chapter of our

manual

in

which we explain the system of the

religious legislator of the Persians.

We

should seek in vain for the same belief am.ong the Egyptian,

Chaldean, or Indian priests. Doubtless as Pascal has so eloquently said, "The problem of our existence is complicated in this dark abyss, and it is as impossible to imagine man without this mystery, as for man himself to understand it ;" but the doctrine of the fall and of original
sin
is one of those against which human pride has constantly revolted, and from which it has first tried to escape. And so, everywhere, the primitive tradition as to the first step of humanity has been the first to be obliterated. As soon as men have felt the sentiment of pride arise,

which

their progress in civilisation,

their

conquests in the material

All religious philosophy world, inspired, they cast off that revelation preserved among which has arisen beyond the limits of the
tradition.

And, indeed, the chosen people, has rejected the doctrine of the fall. how was it possible for such a doctrine to agree with the dreams of pantheism and of emanation. And thus the tradition of the fall of our
first

Mosaic

parents has not been preserved beyond the Zoroastrians and the narrative, except among some savage nations whose miserable

TRADITIONS OF VARIOUS NATIONS.

condition hail

ii
fall.

made them

still

feel

all

the consequences of the

Thus
first

the inhabitants of the Caroline Islands, in the legends

which the

European navigators collected from them, said, " In the beginning there was no death, but a certain Erigiregers, who was one of the evil spirits, one of the Elus Melabut, and who was aggrieved by the happiness of mankind, contrived to get for them a sort of death from which they should wake no more."* The Hottentots also said that "their first parents had committed so great a fault, and so grievously offended the supreme God, that he had
cursed both them and their posterity, "t
3.

But

if

the doctrine of original sin and of the

fall is,

of

all

the facts

in

the Mosaic narrative, the one least found

among

the traditions of

other nations

if this

is

the point where the Christian should recognise

marks of divine inspiration as bearing most directly on the instruction which Holy Scripture is designed to give us, as to our origin, our destiny, and our duties the circumstances with which Moses relates the fault which brought about that fall, are nevertheless found divested indeed of all meaning, without moral signification, and intermixed with entirely material ideas, in the most ancient legends of many
most
clearly the

people.

It

is in fact

impossible not to recognise a close connection in

between the forms though not between the ideas, of the biblical tradition of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a series of ancient myths common to all the branches of the Arian race, to which a learned German, Adalbert Kuhn, has devoted a book of the
their origin,

highest interest. J speak of those

We

containing the idea of the discovery of the use

;

and of the water of life they are found in their most ancient they have passed, more or less modified by the state in the Vedas lapse of time, to the Greeks, Romans, Slavonians, Iranians, and Indians. The fundamental fact of these myths, which are complete
of
fire,
;

only in their most ancient forms, represents the Universe as an immense

tree,

whose

roots

embrace the

earth,

and whose branches form the

is fire,

vault of heaven.

The

fruit

of the tree

indispensable to the
;

life

of man, and also the material symbol of intelligence

distils

from

its

leaves

the water of
fire
;

life.
it

The gods have

for

reserved for themselves the

earth as
like

possession of

falls
it

sometimes to the
himself.

lightning,

but

man

cannot produce

He, who
fire

the Greek Pro-

metheus, discovers the means of producing

artificially

and gives

* Histoire Generale des

Voyages, vol. xvii.

vol.
i.

+ KoLBE,

Description

du Cap de Bonne Esperance,

F.

% Die Berabkuuft des Fetters tind des See also some important articles by M.
maniqtie, 1861.

Goftertraitks.

Berlin, 1859.

Baudry

in the Revtie Ger-

12
it

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

to other

men,

is
;

its

forbidden

fruit

an impious being who he is accursed, and

lias
llie

robbed the sacred tree of wrath of the gods pursues

him and
story,
is

his race.

The analogy between

very close.
It

the form of these myths, and that of the Bible

is

in

fact the

same

tradition, but perverted to

another meaning to symbolise the introduction of material progress,

instead of applying to a fundamental principle of moral government,

and further disfigiu-ed by that monstrous conception, too common in Paganism, which represents the Deity as a formidable power, and a The spirit of eiTor jealous enemy of human happiness and progress. had altered among the Gentiles the mysterious remembrance of the Moses reproduced it in the event which decided the lot of humanity form evidently preserved among the Hebrews, the same form as among but he restored the Arian nations, in spite of the alteration in sense
;

to

it

its

true meaning,

and caused

it

to

reassume

its

solemnly instructive

character.

we have been advancing on uncertain ground and in constant danger of falling into error. The lights of the primitive traditions which we have been able to catch from right and left, have been so few
4.

So

far

and far between, that it would ha%e been wiser not to tread that road, had we not been sure of soon entering on a plainer path. But we have

now

links of a chain

In place of a few isolated tales, scattered is likely to be contested, we now come suddenly on a multitude of concordant proofs, which, coming from the four winds of heaven, arrange themselves so as to put beyond doubt
reached solid ground.

whose unity

that these stories

were identical

in the early ages of the world.

In the number given by the Bible for the antediluvian patriarchs, we have the first instanceof a striking agreement with the traditions of various
nations.

Ten

are mentioned in the

Book

of Genesis, and a remarkable

concidence gives the same number, ten, in the legends of a great number of people, for those primitive ancestors whose history is lost in a mist of
fable.

To whatever epoch

they carry back these ancestors, whether

before or after the deluge, whether the mythical or historical character

number ten, which some have vainly attempted to connect with the speculations of In later religious philosophers, on the mystical value of numbers.
prevails in the picture, they are constant to this sacred

Chaldsea, Berosus enumerates ten antediluvian kings, of

whom we

shall

speak in the chapter on the history of Babylon, and whose fabulous reign extended to thousands of ordinary years, forming ten cosmic days.

The

legends of the

Iranian

race

commence with

the reign of ten

lived

Peisdadien kings,

"men

of the ancient law,"

who

on

"pure

Homa (water of life), and who preserved their sanctity." In India we meet with the nine Brahmadikas, who with Brahmah, their founder, make ten, and who are called the Ten Petris or Fathers. The Chinese

TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE.

count ten emperors, partakers of the divine nature, before the
historical times.

13

And

finally,

not to multiply instances, the

dawn of Germans

and Scandinavians believed

peninsula.

in the ten ancestors of

Odin, and the Arabs

in the ten mythical kings of the Adites, the primordial people of their

Such an agreement cannot be accidental, and must lead us

back

to a

common

origin for all these traditions.

Section
I.

II.
is
is

The Deluge.
among those bearing on
It

The one tradition which

to say that
it

really universal,

the history of primitive man,

that of the Deluge.

would, perhaps,
;

be too much

is

found

among

all

the great races of the

among all people but it occurs human species, with one important
trace of the tradition has

exception, the black race,

among whom no

been found, either among the African tribes or the populations of Polynesia. This absolute silence of a whole race as to the memory of an event so important, in the face of the unanimous voice of all others,
is

a fact

which science should

the

carefully note, for

it

may

involve most

important consequences.
Faithful to

plan which

we have

laid

down, we

shall pass in

review the chief traditions of the deluge, collected from the various Their agreement with the Bible narrative, will branches of humanity.
clearly prove their original unity,

and we

shall see that the tradition is

one of those which date from before the confusion of tongues; that it goes back to the earliest ages of the world, and can be nothing but an account of a real and well-authenticated fact.

But we must

first

eliminate

some legends which have been erroneously

connected with the Biblical Deluge, whose essential features however compel sound criticism to reject them. They refer to merely local pheno-

mena, of an

historical date,

relatively very near our

own.

Doubtless

the tradition of a great primitive cataclysm

may have been confused

;

with
but

these stories, and have led to the exaggeration of their importance

the characteristic features of the recital given by Moses are not found in

them, and
traditions,

this fact clearly

shows, even under the legendary form of the

and local character. To class traditions of with those which really refer to the deluge, would be to weaken rather than strengthen the argument to be drawn from the
their restricted
this nature

concurrence of the

latter.

Such

is

the character of the great inundation placed by the historical

It

records of China, under the reign of Yao.

with, and not

has no real connection

;

even any resemblance

local,

to,

the Biblical deluge

it

was

an event purely

and

its

date even can be determined as long times in Egypt and

subsequent to the commencement of historical

14

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The Chinese
in

Babylon.

scribes
tlio

mention

Yii,

a minister ami engineer elevating

engaged

re-estabHshing

water courses,
all

the banks,

digging canals, and regulating the taxes of

the provinces in China.

learned Sinologue,
in tlie

Ivlouard Biol, has proved, in a memoir on the

changes

lower course of the

arose from frecjucnt inundations of this river.

settlements on

its

Hoang Ho, that this catastrophe The primitive Chinese banks had suffered much from these overflows. The

works which Yu carried out were only the commencement of the embankments necessary for restraining tlic water, and which were
continued in after ages.

Not

less clear is the local character of the

legend of Bochica related

bj the Muyscas, ancient inhabitants of the province of Cundinamarca, in Sout'h America, though the fabulous element is here in greater proportion to the historical foundation. Huythaca, wife of the divine man Bochica, gave herself up to abominable sorceries, to cause the river Funzha to leave its bed. All the plain of Bogota was inundated, men and animals perished in this catastrophe, a few only escaped by reaching The tradition adds that Bochica broke open the the high mountains. rocks which form the valley of Canoas and Tequendama, to allow of the escape of the waters afterwards he re-assembled the dispersed people of the Muyscas tribe, taught them the worship of the sun, and died. 2. Of all the true traditions relative to the great deluge, by far the most curious is that of the Chaldreans, made known to the Greeks by the historian Berosus, and which will be found at length in the It is a story more exactly parallel to that chapter on the Babylonians. of the Bible than any other, omitting no characteristic particular in the It must be evident to detail, even to the birds sent out of the ark. anyone who compares the two narratives, that they were one up to the time when Abraham went out from among the Chaldseans, to journey to But in the Chaldcean cosmogony, the tradition embodies no Palestine. moral lesson, as does the Bible narrative. The deluge is but an acci;

dental event, a sort of fatal accident in the history of the world, in

place of being a punishment sent for the sins of mankind.

The man

chosen by heaven to escape the deluge is called by Berosus, Xisuthrus, a name the original fomi of which we do not know, and therefore cannot
guess

found

be by the gods of the approaching deluge, buried at Sippara, the city of the Sun, tables, on which were engraven the revelation of the mysteries of the origin of the world, and His children dug them up after the deluge, of religious ordinances.
its

meaning.

The Chaldaean legend adds one

incident, not to

in the Bible:

Xisuthrus, warned

and they became the basis of the sacerdotal

institutions of Chalda^a.

On the
all their

other hand, the original

monuments and

texts of Egypt, amidst

speculations on the cosmogony, do not contain one single, even

allusion, to the recollection of a deluge.
It
is

distant,

true that the

TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE.

religious theories of the

15

Egyptians said much more on the origin of the

Universe, and of celestial bodies, than of the creation, and the early days of the human race. According to a passage in Manetho, open however to much suspicion as interpolated, Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus, had
himself inscribed on tablets, before the deluge, in hieroglyphics and in the sacred tongue, the elements of all knowledge. After the deluge, the second Thoth translated the contents of these tablets into the vulgar
tongue.

This is the only allusion to the deluge which can be iM<xluced from an Egyptian source. Manetho has no mention of it in his
Dynasties, the only authentic part of his work we now possess. absence of this tradition from among the myths of the Pharaonic
gion, renders

The
reli-

it probable that this was So the Siriadic and, without doubt, of Asiatic and Chaldsean origin. land where, according to the passage in question, the columns of hiero-

only a recent foreign introduction,

glyphics were placed,

may

This
tale

tradition,

though not found

among

the Jews at

no other than Chaldsea. was current as a popular the commencement of the Christian era a cirwell have been
in the Bible,

cumstance which confirms our supposition, as the Hebrew people may have received it during the Babylonian capti\aty. Josephus tells us that the patriarch Seth, unwilling that the wisdom and astronomical
discoveries of the ancients should perish in the double destruction of the world, by fire and by water, which Adam had predicted, set up two
pillars,

of this

one of brick the other of stone, on which were engraven records wisdom, and which still remained in the land of " Siriad."*

tradition of the deluge, in less exact confonnity indeed with the Mosaic record than that of Chald?ea, but still preserving all essential

The

and clearly characteristic, exists in the most ancient recollections of all the branches of the Arian or Japhetic race, without excepshall give the versions peculiar to the Indians, Iranians, to tion.
points,

We

the Celts and Slavonians in the chapter on the primitive Arians, on The importance of the tradition their organisation and religious ideas.
of the deluge

member

that

among all the Arian people, is the greater when we rethe name of "Noah," unlike those of the other primitive

no appropriate meaning in any of the Semitic idioms, and appears to derive its origin from some one of the languages of the Arian Its fundamental root is Na, to which, in all the languages of stock. the latter race, is attached the meaning of water vaav, to flow, vafia water, vtjxav, to swim ; Nympha, Neptunus, water deities. Nix, Nick, the Undine of the northern races. It seems then to have been
patriarchs, bears

applied by tradition, precisely on account of the deluge, to tliat righteous man who was spared by the Divine will, and may consequently be

Jos. An^.,

I, 2, 3.


i6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

to the

compared

name Ogyges, embodying a

similar idea,

which one of

the forms of the Greek legend connects with the deluge.

Noah, makes
under

This observation on the probability of an Arian origin for the name it easy to see why we find it, with the slight modification

of a reduplication of the

whom

first syllable, in that of the King Nannaclius, * the Phrygian tradition placed the deluge.

had a great place in the legends of Phrygia; drew from it its surname of " Kibotos " or "Ark," the city of Apamea, professing to be the place where the ark rested. Al.so the history of Noah, with liis name, was inscribed on certain medals which issued from the mint of Apamea in the third century of our era, when Christian ideas had spread over all the Roman world, and began to infuse themselves into the minds of those even who remained attached to Paganism. 3. " It is a fact well worthy of remark," says M. Maury, "to meet in America with traditions relative to the deluge, infinitely closer to those of the Bible and the Chaldrean religion than those of any people of the ancient world. We can hardly admit that the emigrations which certainly took place from Asia into Northern America, by the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, and which have taken place again in our own days, could have carried such remembrances, for no trace of them has been found among the Mongolian and Siberian populations,! who mixed with the aborigines of the New World. No doubt some American nations, the Mexicans and Peruvians, had attained, at the time of the Spanish conqviest, to a very advanced social state. But that civilisation had its own peculiar and distinctive character, and seems to have developed itself on the soil where it flourished. Many very simple inventions, such as scales, for example, were unknown to these nations, and this fact proves that they derived their knowledge neither from The attempts which have been made to discover in India nor Japan. Asia, among the Buddhists, the origin of Mexican civilisation, have not Moreover, had Buddhism as yet led to any satisfactory conclusion. America, which seems at least doubtful, it could not penetrated into
of this event
.
.

The memory

have carried with

it

a story not to be found in

its

books.

The

cause of
to

the likeness of the diluvian traditions of the people of the

those of the Bible, remains
still

New World

from the pen of a man whence we borrow our quotation, attempts to destroy the authority of the Mosaic narrative of the deluge, is doubly valuable. J

an unexplained fact." This avowal, of immense learning, and who, in the very book

But
*

to us this fact, inexplicable to

M. Maury,

is

capable of a very

SuiD. V. 'NavvaKog. t The tradition of the Deluge is nevertheless found very distinctly among the Calmucs Malte Brun, Precis de Geographic, vol. Ix. X Art. 'Deluge,' EncyclopMie Moderne.
;

TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE.

17

It clearly proves that the simple, and the only possible explanation. tradition of the deluge is one of the oldest of humanity, a tradition so

old as to be anterior to the dispersion of the human families, and to the first developments of material civilisation ; and that the red races,

the people of America, brought it with them from the common cradle of our species, to their new abodes, at the same time that the Semites, the Chaldaians, and the Arians carried
settlement.
it,

each one, to

its

own new

the American legends on the deluge, the most important are those of Mexico, as they existed in a written and definite form,

Among

Don Fernando d'Alva Exprevious to any contact with Europeans. the Chichimeques entirely founded on tlilxochitl, in his history of native documents, says, that according to the traditions of that people,
the
first

age called Atonatiuh, that

is,

"The

sun of the waters," was

of the Mexican cataclysm
or Tezpi.

terminated by a universal deluge. is Coxcox, called by some people

traditions a raft of cypress

The Noah
Teo
in

Cipactli,

He

saved

himself with his wife Xochiquetzal

a bark, or according to other

wood. Pictures representing the deluge of Coxcox have been found among the Aztecs, the Miztecs, the Zapotecs, The tradition of the lastthe Tlascalans and the Mechoacaneses. named people in particular bears a yet more striking resemblance to It is said that Tezpi embarked in a spacious the Biblical narrative.
vessel with his wife, his children,

and many animals, and such seeds as

were necessary for the subsistence of mankind. When the Great Spirit Tezcatlicopa ordered the waters to subside, Tezpi sent out of the ark a
vulture.

That

bird,

which

lived

on dead bodies, did not come back, on

account of the great number Tezpi sent other birds, earth.

of corpses scattered on the recently dried

among whom

the

humming

bird alone

Then Tezpi returned, holding in its mouth a branch with leaves. seeing that the soil was beginning to be covered with new verdure came out of his ship on the mountain Colhuacan.* According to another
tradition,

current

among

the Indians of Cholula (and related in a

manuscript

now

in the Vatican,

by Pedro de

los Rios,

a Dominican

monk, who in 1566 copied in the counti7 all the hieroglyphic pictures which he could procure),t before the great inundation which took place 4,800 years after the creation of the world, the country of Anahuac was
inhabited by giants
into fish
;

all

those

who

did not perish were transfoiTned

with the exception of seven persons

who took

refuge in

some

caverns.

The
*
vol.

Peruvians, whose civilisation was not below that of the Mexicans

Humboldt, Monuments
ii.,

des Peiiplcs

indigenes

de

I'Americjue,

p.

77.
vol.
i.,

Humboldt,

p. 144.

l8
also

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

had
a tradition of the dehige,
first

and placed that event under King

tribes

Viracocho,

of the Incas of Cuzco.*

The

traditions of those

American

who remained

in

a savage
to doubt.

state must, from their very nature, be to a certain extent

open

they did not exist in a written form tliey were not secure from foreign influence ; they were collected only in later times, when the tribes had long been in contact with Europeans, and when many an

As

adventurer

who had

lived

among them might have

These

introduced

new

elements into their traditions.

inhabitants of

tales, nevertheless, are

worthy of
time

mention, but must be received with some reserve.

In the songs of the

far distant

New
left

California there
its

is

mentioned a

bed and covered the earth. All men and all when animals perished in this deluge, sent by the supreme God Chinigchinig, with the exception of a few persons who took refuge upon a high mounthe sea
tain

North America related in their rude legends that all mankind had been destroyed by a deluge, and that then God, to repeople the earth, had changed animals into men. The traveller Henry repeats a tradition which he had heard from the Formerly the Father of the Indian tribes lived Indians of the lakes. Having been warned by a dream that a deluge towards the rising sun. was coming to destroy the earth, he constructed a raft on which he
tribes of

which the water could not reach, f According to Father Charlevoix, the

many months new who

He floated thus saved himself with his family, and all the animals. on the water. The animals, which then had the power At last a of speech, complained aloud and murmured against him.
earth appeared, and he stepped

down on

it

with

all

the creatures,

thenceforward

lost the

power of speech

as a punishment for their

murmurs
Mr.

against their preserver. % Catlin thinks he has found, in the great

American

tribe the

Man-

dans, traditions entirely analogous to those of the Bible, especially a remembrance of sending out the dove, and of the exit from the ark.

Resemblances of the same kind have been pointed out by other travellers, but they are too vague to enable us to rely on the details with which In the Polynesian islands the the narrators have suiTOunded them.
diluvian tradition
is

not found

among

the black or Australian race, but

among
mixed
are

the Polynesians, originally an Asiatic people, it is met with, up with incidents borrowed from the ravages of high tides, which

among

the most constant plagues of those

islands.

The most
Villebrane,

*
vol.

Ulloa, Memoircs
ii.

sttr la

decmiverte de

rAmerique.
territoire

p.

346
366

sq.

t DUFLOT DE
vol.
ii.,

MOFRAS, Exploration dn
vol.
ii.

de

V Oregon,

p.

sq.

X Thatcher, Indian Traits,

p.

108, et sq.


MANKIND AFTER THE DELUGE.
striking of these Polynesian tales
is

19

from Otaheite, which some features

But
all

connect positively with the great traditions of primitive times.

the diluvian stories from this part of the world are
character pervading
all

of that childish

the legends of canoe-using races.

This long review, which

tively, as

we now

conclude, enables us to state posiis

we have

already said, that the narrative of the deluge

universal tradilion, pervading all branches of the

human

family, always

excepting the black race.

purpose.

remembrance

so precise,

and everywhere
of a terrible
ancestors, as

in such perfect agreement, cannot possibly be a myth, invented for a

It

must of necessity be the recollection of a

real,
first

event, so strongly impressed on the imagination of our

never to be forgotten by their descendants.

Section

3.

The Cradle of Post-Diluvian Humanity.

As

to traditions ott this subject, see chiefly "EcV-rXem, ^^Dequelque Legendes Brahfniniques qui se rapportent an berceau de PEspece humaine," Paris, 1856. Renan, " Z?6' Vorigine dti langage," 2nd edit., pp. 218 233. Obry, " Le Berceau de Vesplce humaine selon les Iiidiens, les Ferses et les Hebreux," Amiens, 1838.

I.

The

place where the Bible narrative states that the ark rested after
is

the deluge, the starting point for the sons of Noah,

mount

Ararat.

mounArmenian range, which in the course of the various migrations of which that country has been the scene has received the name of Ararat, after having been called Mount Masis by the indigenous inhabitants. The greater number of the interpreters of Scripture have

From

a remote time this

name has been

applied to the highest

tain in the

taken

this view,

but others in the early days of the Christian era pre-

ferred to follow the Chaldeean tradition, after Berosus,

who

placed the

descent of Xisuthrus in another part of the same range, at the Gordinean

(Kurdish) Mountains.
Nevertheless,
to admit that in
if

we

attentively

examine the sacred

it

text,

it is

impossible
situated
it

Moses thought

that the Ararat of the deluge

is

was

Armenia in fact a few verses further on was " as they journed from the east" that
arrived at the plains of Shinar.

distinctly said that

the descendants of

Noah

This compels
it

us, in searching for the

high land on which the ark rested, to seek

in the

chain of the

Hindoo

Koosh, or perhaps rather

the Indus.
This, too,
is

in the

mountains where we find the sources of exactly the point to which the traditions of

the Indians and Persians converge

ancient nations

the traditions

of those two great

who have

preserved the clearest and most circumstantial

recollections of the primitive ages.

20
2.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

In
all

the legends of India, the oriijin of

mankind

is

placed at

Mount Merou
with earth.
the

the abode
is

of the

Gods
north,

the

pillar that

nnites

heaven
to

Merou
Indus.

situated

even with

reference

the

primitive location of the Indian Arian tribes in the Punjaub

and on
to

Upper
and

This

is

not a fabulous mountain,

unknown

terrestrial
exists,

geot^rajihy.
is

Baron Eckstein has proved that it actually situated near the "Serica" of the ancients or the south-

west of Thibet.

But the indications of the Iranians are still more precise, still more in agreement with those of the Bible, because as these people have not migrated so far as others, the tradition of the primitive cradle has not assumed for them so misty a fonn. The invaluable enumeration ot
the successive halting places of this race, which
is

contained in the

most ancient chapters of the books attributed to Zoroaster, characterises "Aryanem Vaedjo,"* the original "starting point " of mankind, and particularly of the Iranians as a northern region cold and mountainous whence the Persian race descended southward towards Sogdiana. There is the centre of the world, the Holy Mountain Berezat of the Zend Avesta, the Alboraj of the modem Persians, from whose side flows the not less sacred river, Arvand, whose waters gave drink to the The illustrious Eugene Burnouf has shown in a perfectly first men. convincing manner that the Berezat is the Bolor or Belourtagh, and
that the

Arvand

is

the Jaxartes.f

later times to

names Berezat and Arvand have been attached in we find them applied successively to mountains and rivers in Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor, and with no little surprise we recognise them in " the classical names of the " Orontes " of Syria, and the " Berecynthus
It is true that the

mountains and rivers far from Bactria,

of

Phrygia.

But

this

is

the

efifect

of

the displacement

all

the

localities of

Races carried with them in their migrations those ancient names to which their ancient traditions were attached, and bestowed them anew on the mountains and rivers they found in the countries where they
settled.

legendary geography underwent in the early ages.

This happened to the name of Ararat.

of humanity
originally

M. Obry has shown

that

the mountain which the Japhetic tribes regarded as the sacred

cradle

bore in their traditions the

it

name name

of

Aryaratha, the origin of that of Ararat, and that

was only

in later

times that the Armenians in their migration transported the

to

* RlTTER Erdkunde, vol. viii., 1st part, pp. 29 31, 50 69. " Ilaiig der erste Kapitel des Vendidad in the last vol. of Bunsen's "Egypt." KlEPERT in the Bidletiii de T Academic de Berlin, DecemSpiegel Avesta, vol. i., p. 4, sq. ber, 1855.

t Conimentairc sur

le

Vacua, vol.

i.,

p.

239

.f;/.

SITUATION OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

Mount Masius.
race.

21

Thus

the Biblical statement of an Ararat situated east

of the land of Shinar, coincides exactly with the traditions of the Arian

We

find,

then, the

sacred

tradition

and the most

reliable of the

popular traditions are agreed that the mountain mass of Little Bokhara

and Western Thibet was the place whence the human race issued. There the largest rivers of Asia, the Indus, the Oxus, and the Jaxartes, take their rise ; the culminating points are the Belourtagh, and the vast
plateau of Pamir, so fitted for sustaining the primitive populations while still in a pastoral condition, and whose name in its primitive form was

Upa Merou,
point

the land of the summit of Merou.

traditions,

To

this locality, too,

jxspoiTiq some Greek mean the " men sprung from Merou." The dv9pu)TTot, which can only

particularly

the

expression

legends of other people also, as to the original country of their ancestors, tend in the same direction, though without reaching the central point,

being partly obscured by the distance they have travelled.

golian tribes attach their most ancient legends to the Thian
to

The MonChan and

two

the

Altai,

the

Finnish tribes to the Oural,

because these

chains hide

more

distant mountains

from their view.

But

if

we prolong

the two lines of migration indicated by this tradition,

we

shall find that

they meet in Little Bokhara.

3.

These

localities,

having been the cradle of post-diluvian humanity,

led to

nations

who had

preserved the remembrance were naturally

place there also the cradle of antediluvian man.

Among

the Indians,

it, descended from Mount Merou. Kourou, the true terrestrial paradise. There There is found the Outtara also we are led by the Greek paradisiacal myth of the Meropes, the The Persians described the " Aryanem Vaedjo," people of Merou. situated on Mount Berezat, as a paradise exactly resembling that of the book of Genesis, until the day when the fall of our first parents and the wickedness of Ahriman the spirit of evil, transformed it into an abode The name also of Eden has been applied at one of insupportable cold.

men

before the deluge like those after

time to this region, for it is clearly found in the name of the kingdom of Oudyana, or " the garden," near Cashmere, watered by four rivers precisely as
It is certain that

was the Mosaic Eden. two of the rivers of

Paradise, in the Bible narrative,

which take their rise in the mountain mass are two Pamir, the one to the north, the other to the south. of Belourtagh and Gihon is the Oxus, still called Djihoun by the people on its banks. In Pison we must recognise the Upper Indus, and the land of Havilah, rich in gold and precious stones, which it "compassed," seems to be the country of Darada, near Cashmere, so celebrated for its
of the largest rivers
riches.

of the

Biblical

But must we conclude with some scholars the absolute identity Eden with the Outtara Kourou and the Aryanem

22

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Vaedjo ? Need we suppose, with these critics, that the occurrence of names of the Tigris and Euplirates, as the other rivers of Paradise, are the result of subsequent confusion ? We think not ; it seems to us, Moses Eden had a far greater as to M. Bunsen, that in the mind of extent than the Paradise of the Indians and Iranians. If we take Hterally the indications of the Bible as to the four rivers which went out of Eden, they clearly mark out a vast region stretching from the mountains, where to the east rise the Oxus and the Indus, to those mountains whence on the west flow the Tigiis and Euphrates a fertile and temperate land a really delicious abode, situated between regions burned up by heat, or wasted by cold. It is there that the inspired Hebrew legislator most probably thought that our species first saw the light.
the

Section
1.

4.

The Tower

of Babel.

agreement with the Bible which we have hitherto universal character, and are found among people of various races, and in far distant countries. This is not the case with the tradition of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of
traditions in

The

examined have a

really

Babel.

The

Bible narrative places the scene of this event in the plains

is

of Shinar or Chaldaea, and the legend

that country,
'

peculiar to the inhabitants of

and to nations who are known to have emigrated from thence. The story of the Tower of the Tongues " was among the most ancient recollections of the Chaldasans, and was one of the national traditions of the Armenians, who had received it from the civilised
'

nations inhabiting the Tigro-Euphrates basin.

in a

Berosus gives the stoiy form almost identical with that of the Bible, which will be found further on in the chapter on the Baljylonians. 2. As far as the Chaldseans are concerned, though the tradition itself

remained immutable,

its

locality

was not always the same.

very

valuable gloss, introduced by the

LXX.

into the text of the Prophet

Isaiah,* leads us to suppose that one version of the story placed the

* Isaiah x. 9. In the LXX. version the expression is used" Calneh, where the tower was built." The names mentioned are Babylon,

Calneh, Arabia, Damascus, and Samaria. In the Hebrew the names are Calno, Carchemish, Hamath, Arpad, Samaria, and Damascus. The name Carchemish is not found in the LXX., and as that word, according to Fuerst's Lexicon, means " The Tower of Chemosh," is it not possible that the reference in the Greek to the "Tower" may have arisen from a translation, instead of a transcription of the word ?

Tr.


THE TOWER OF TONGUES.
"Tower
of Tongues" in the city of Calneh,

23

now

Nipur, one of the

most ancient cities of southern Chaldcea. down from the most remote ages, when the civilisation of the Tigro-Euphrates basin had its chief seat in the provinces bordering on the Persian Gulf
This was handed

But the tradition most generally current among the Chaldseans, in agreement with the Bible, placed that famous Tower in the immediate vicinity of Babylon. It is found in the great pyramid of the seven
stages at Borsippa.

Some

years since an inscription of

King Nebu-

chadnezzar was recovered and translated, in which he boasts of having

repaired and completed the tower in honour of one of his gods. *
calls
it

He

Seven Stages, the Eternal House, the Temple of the Seven I^uminaries of the Earth (the seven planets) to which is attached the most ancient legend of Borsippa, which the first king built, but without being able to finish the work." Nebuchadnezzar adds, " Men had abandoned it since the days of the The earthquake and lightdeluge, speaking their words in disorder. ning had shaken the crude brickwork and split the burnt brickwork of the revetment, the crude brick of the upper stories had crumbled down
of the
into

"The Tower

mere

piles."

The
still

discovery of this inscription points out to us,

lifting their

among

the ruins
still

heads around the

site

of

ancient

Babylon, the

gigantic remains of a

Nebuchadnezzar, was believed to

monument which, in be the Tower of Babel.

still

the days of
It
is

this

that the inhabitants of the country

call

" Birs Nimrod," "the

* In the translation of this inscription, the author, whose version is supported by the high authority of M. Oppert, differs from Sir H. C. "Behold now the building Rawlinson, who renders it as follows: named 'The Stages of the Seven Spheres,' which was the wonder of He had completed 42 Borsippa, had been built by a former king. ammas (of the height) but he did not finish its head. From the lapse of time it had become ruined, they had not taken care of the exits of the waters, so the rain and wet had penetrated into the brickwork, the casing of burnt brick had bulged out, and the tenaces of crude brick lay scattered in heaps ; (then) Merodach, my great lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. I did not change its site, nor did I destroy the foundation platform, but in a fortunate month, and on an auspicious day, I undertook the rebuilding of the crude brick terraces and the burnt brick casing (of the temple). I strengthened its foundaI set tion, and I placed a titular record in the part that I had rebuilt. my hand to build it up, and to finish its summit. As it had been in As it had been in former former times, so I built up its structure. Raw. Her. ii. 485. It will be seen days, thus I exalted its head," etc. that, in Sir H. C. Rawlinson's version, the dainaged state of the temple

is

ascribed to defective drainage, instead

of,

as in the author's

and M.

It is necessary to add Oppert's translation, to the effects of the deluge. that the author is about to devote a special work to the defence of his

opinion.

Tr.

24

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

in

tower of Nimrod," and,

like a mountain.
state in

the midst

of

the plains,

it

still

looks

The
it

description
it,

given by Nebuchadnezzar of the

the repairs, suits exactly

which he found

when he undertook
It is

no more than a prodigious, shapeless of sun-dried bricks which have crumbled away into niinous heaps. mass 2. The decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions has given us an etymology for the name of Babel different from that which seems to follow from the Bible text that is Bab-ilu, "The gate of the god Ilu." The derivation Babylon, "confusion," is the result of an alliteration But, on the other hand, our .inspired by the legend told of the place. knowledge of the Assyrian tongue has revealed that the name " Borthe state in which
is.

now

sippa" meant, in that idiom, "the tower of tongues." Babylon is often designated in the cuneiform texts by a symbolical name, ideographically written,

meaning

"the town

of the root of languages."

Borsippa by another meaning "the town of the dispersion of tribes." These names seem almost like medals struck to commemorate the
ancient tradition of the plains of Shinar.

CHAPTER

III.

MA TERIAL VESTIGES OF PRIMITIVE HUMANITY.

Section
i.

Remains
ages.

of the Arch^olithic Epoch.

Thus
lating,

far

we have been
its

listening to the great voice of humanity, re-

in

both sacred and profane

early

retained of

We

tradition, the memories it has must now address ourselves to an

all

enquiry of an entirely different nature, in order to gather

possible

information as to the actual conditions of man's primitive existence.

The
them.

stones are

now

about to speak.

We

shall ask

the successive
lie

layers which compose our soil to give up the secrets which

hid in

We

shall carefully

examine the material traces

left

by

the passage

of races long anterior to history, and thus place by the side of general facts transmitted by tradition, numerous details of the life of the first

men, as well as of the successive phases of their material progress. We avail ourselves of an entirely new science which as yet has not
existed
all

twenty years,

called
still

"prehistoric archseology. "

It

is,

like

sciences

which are
authority,

in their infancy,

presumptuous, and claims,

at

any rate
all

in the case of

some of

its

adepts, to overturn tradition, to

abolish
origin.

and to be the only exponent of the problem of our These are bold pretensions which will never be realised.

ARCH.EOLITHIC EPOCH.
Without aiming so high, the new
sible,

25

science, within the limits of the posits

has a part to play sufficiently great and brilliant to satisfy

enormous gaps in tradition, to give to doubtful statements the authority of facts proved by science this is what it will one day accomplish, and has already partly achieved.
ambition.
fill

To

up with

certainty, the

Prehistoric archaeology, moreover,

is

as yet but in

its

infancy,

it

still

and many problems without solution. There is too often a desire to establish a system, and many scholars hasten to build theories on an insufficient amount of observations, finally, all the
leaves great gaps,
facts of this science are not yet established

with perfect certainty.

But in spite of these imperfections, inevitable in a study so recently commenced, the science of the archaeological vestiges of primitive humanity has taken rank among the positive sciences. It has already brought together a great number of absolutely certain facts, and has commenced Its researches have already brought to light the to synthetise them. scenes of the rude and savage life of the first men, and from its successes up to the present time, we may infer its future achievements. Henceforth it will be impossible to write a book such as we have undertaken, and to embody in it the actual state of knowledge, without giving a place to the results of this study. It is necessary that none but facts satisfactorily proved should be admitted to such a manual as this, and therefore we have taken the greatest care to distinguish between facts proved, and things which still remain doubtful. Unfortunately the researches of prehistoric archaeology have not yet been prosecuted in all parts of the globe. In fact at present only in Western Europe, and more particularly in France and England. This is far from the place where the human race first appeared, or where our first parents lived. Here the science presents a most lamentable gap, which no doubt will be one day filled up. But, as we shall see, the facts proved in Europe, although they cannot be regarded as absolutely primordial, possess so high an amount of interest as to prevent our passing them over in
silence.

find the most ancient vestiges of the existence and industry of Western Europe, we must go back to that period which geologists call quaternary, the period immediately preceding the commencement of the present geological epoch. The form of our continents was then very nearly the same as at present. America has not changed. In Africa the ocean entirely covered the vast plains which now form the desert of Sahara, and which everything proves to be the bed of a recently dried sea recently being of course understood in the
2.

To

man

in

sense of

the geologists, for

whom,

in

comparison with the periods

of Morocco,
Algeria,

employed

in the formation of the earth, facts long anterior to history,

are quite modern.

The mountain range

and

Tunis, formed a long peninsula stretching from east to west, connected

26

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlie

with Spain, and

tinent

Straits of Gibraltar did

not tlien

exist.

con-

submerged at the same time that tlie Sahara tract was raised, and of which tlie legend of Atlantis preserves a vague recollection, has left as its last relics, and as indications of its extent, the Canary and Azores islands. Sicily was attached to the extremity of Italy, the
British isles to the

north of

France.

In the north of Asia a vast

Mediterranean Sea, which subsequent elevations of the soil have removed, occupied the whole basin of the Caspian and Sea of Aral,
covered great part of the Steppes situated between the Oural mountains

and the Volga,

southward

as well as the country of the

Kalmuks, and reached

to the base of the Caucasus.

Its eastern limits are uncertain,

but according to the observations of travellers, and indications drawn

from the annals of China, it seems to have occupied Gobi to the north of Thibet.

all

the desert of

The

conditions of climate, and consequently of the

entirely different

Fauna and Flora,

were then

from what they have been during any part

of historical times.
greater than
suffered a

After having experienced a degree of heat

at

much
time

we

present

have,

our

continents

about

this

considerable abatement of temperature, which led to the "glacial period " of the geologists. The change must have been sudden,
for its causes,

and we need not here seek

explained.

which are very imperfectly

Southern Europe, as far as the latitude of Sicily, had then much the same appearance as Siberia has now. Immense glaciers Those of covered the whole of Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia. the Alps advanced into the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy, part of which was still under water. The glaciers of the Rhone touched the All the valleys of the Carpathian, the Balkan, Pyrenees, ApenJura.
nines, for the

These conditions of climate were the same were filled with ice. whole northern hemisphere, a great part of which was emerging from the waters, in consequence of an alteration of level which sub-

merged great tracts of land in the southern hemisphere. Indications have been found in America of the passage of glaciers not smaller than Asia shows traces of them, almost as far south as those of Europe.
tropical latitudes, for

we

see clearly that a great glacier occupied the

place of the upper waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, and

moved

towards Assyria.
It

was not

until a little later,

when

the effect of the return to a

less rigorous climate had been felt, that vegetation became sufficiently abundant to nourish the numerous animals characterising the close

of this period of excessive cold.

Then

the earth,

partly

cleared

of snow and

was occupied by mammoths or maned elephants, and the rhinoceros (Tichorinus), whose thick fur enabled them to live in a very rigorous climate, and who wandered south as far as Spain and
ice,

Greece

aurochs, wild bulls, stags, all larger than those of our days,

CONDITION OF PRIMITIVE MAN.

the feline race, larger and stronger than any tiger or lion.

27

associated with gigantic cave bears, hyenas, and enormous carnivora of

the hippopotamus and beaver inhabited our rivers.

goats, and chamois,

now

confined to

At this time Marmots, wild the summit of the Alps or Pyrenees,

inhabited the lower plains of the Mediterranean.

The musk
still,

ox, not

now
the

found south of the 60th parallel in North America, wandered in

the plains of Perigord.

The

reindeer,

same

latitude.

What

especially

more arctic marked this

abounded

in

particular

epoch,

immediately

after the glacial period,

was the extraordinary moisture of

the climate, due, no doubt, to the melting of the great glaciers and the

almost unimaginable abundance of water, spread over the northern hemisphere. Nearly all the elevated valleys were occupied by lakes,

and emptied themselves into were enormous, and occupied the entire breadth of the valleys through which their successors now run, these valleys being for the most part only the ancient river beds deeply eroded by the passage of such masses of water. To imagine the Somme, the Rhine, and the Rhone of that age, it is necessary to raise the level of the water
which gradually burst
the valleys.
their natural barriers

The

rivers

first, 100 metres, of the second 60, and at least 50 for the last. Such was the aspect of our countries, such were the rigorous conditions which the climate and the monstrous animals still remaining imposed on the existence of man on his first appearance. The bones of the animals we have mentioned are found associated with chipped flints, and other stone implements, evidencing the rudest workmanship, and the most rudimentary social state, in the sand and fluviatile gravels of the counties of Suffolk and Bedford, and in the transported beds of the valleys of the Somme and Oise, and in the sand of the Champ de Mars Of this age also seem to be the bone caverns of the Pyrenees, at Paris. which are from 150 to 250 metres above the present level of the valleys, and some grottoes in Perigord, that of Moustier for example, where the worked flints resemble those found at Saint Acheul and Abbeville. The arms and utensils of this primitive age are for the most part pointed We can easily see axes of flint, formed by breaking off large splinters. that these flints, whose white coating proves their great antiquity, were intended to cut, to cleave, and to pierce. When the points Some of these are sharpened it has been by striking off smaller chips. stones are scrapers, which were used, no doubt, to clean the inside of the skins which the savages of the first stone age used as a defence

of the
3.

against the cold.

We

may

cultivation of the soil

even form a pretty correct idea of their mode of life. The and domestication of animals were unknown ;

forest, and inhabited natural caverns in the Those who dwelt by the sea shore lived on fish, which they harpooned among the rocks, and on shell fish the inland people

they wandered in the

mountains.

28
subsisted

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

on tlio flesh of animals killed by stone weapons. This is by the accumulation of animal bones in the caves, some of which still bear marks of the instrument used to cut off the flesh.
proved

But the men of

this epoch did not confine themselves to eating the flesh of ruminant, hoofed, pachydermatous, or even carnivorous animals ; they were very fond of the marrow, as the long bones are almost con-

stantly found to be cracked.

This

is

a taste which has been noticed

among most

savages.

The men,

therefore,
little

whose

traces are found in

level of those

the quaternary deposits, were savages

above the

now

inhabiting the

Andaman

Islands, or

New

Caledonia.
;

Their

life

was profoundly miserable, but still they were men even in their abject state the divine spark was still in them. Already man was in possession of
fire,

that primordial

gulf between
forget
also

him and even the most sagacious animal.

even
first,

that

and wonderful discovery which places a Let us not the most rudimentary inventions require the
without precedent
it

exercise of the greatest intelligence, as being the

or pattern.

In the earliest days of mankind

required a greater exer-

cise of genius to contrive the

cutting out of a rude stone hatchet, such

as

it does in our days most complicated and ingenious machine. Moreover, if we look at the same time in our museums at the only arms of primitive man, and at the skeletons of the formidable animals among whom he had to live, we must see that, so feeble and so ill-armed, he needed all the resources of the intelligence with which his Creator had gifted him, to escape rapid annihilation under such conditions. Imagination may almost exactly depict the terrible combats of the first men against the monsters who then lived, but have since disappeared. Every moment it was necessary to defend their caverns against carnivora, larger and stronger than those of our age, bears, tigers, and hyenas. Often surprised by these terrible beasts, they became their prey. By force of cunning and tact they contrived, however, to conquer carnivora before whom they were so weak and feeble, and by slow degrees drove them back before mankind. The savages of the quaternary period dug pits as traps for the elephant and rhinoceros, and the flesh of these giants of the animal kingdom formed an important part of their food. 4. A second stage in the development of humanity is marked by an improvement in the workmanship of the stone implements, but its

we

find in the sand of the fluviatile alluvium, than

to construct the

zoological character has

not varied.

The remains

of this epoch are

found more particularly in caverns,

in those at the foot of the Pyrenees,

and

in

those of Perigord,

thousand vestiges of men,

the

still

where excavations have supplied many savage, but more advanced than those

who lived at the date Somme and Oise.

of the formation of the deposits of the valleys of

During this age the great carnivora seem to have disappeared, thus accounting for the enormous increase of herbi-

PRIMITIVE ART.
vora.

29

becoming
vast
this

The mammoth and rhinoceros still existed, but were gradually The reindeer abounded in the South of France in extinct. The men of herds, which roamed in the pastures of the forests.

and

second epoch used bones and the horns of animals, as well as stone, All the objects dug up in the their utensils were better formed.

grottoes of Perigord and

Angoumoise proved

that our species

had made
Orna-

great progress in the manufacture of tools and utensils.

are barbed.

Their arrows
In

Some

flints

are notched, so as to form a sort of saw. are found

many ments nxerely for show bones of ruminant animals hollowed grottoes have been found phalangal
made
of teeth and
flints.

and pierced with a hole evidently intended to serve -as whistles, for But the men who in these which purpose they can even now be used.
caves led the life of Troglodytes, not only managed to cut with facility, they succeeded also with stone tools in carving and engraving ivory and Finally, it is reindeer's horn, as is proved by numerous specimens.

with the point of

most remarkable that they had already the instinct of design, and drew flint on slate, ivory, or horn, the pictures of the animals which surrounded them. The species most frequently delineated in these essays of prehistoric, one might almost say antediluvian, art are the wild goal and the
reindeer,
either singly

or in

groups.

One

tablet

of slate gives us

an excellent picture of the cave bear. But unquestionably the most remarkable of all these designs is one on a slab of fossil ivory which has been discovered in the grotto of the Madelein (commune of Turzac On it is drawn, by a very inexin the arrondissement of Sarlat). perienced hand, and evidently after many failures, a figure, clearly that of a mammoth, with the long mane which distinguished it

from every living species of elephant. The greater part of rhe representations thus drawn by men who were contemporary with the

enormous spread of reindeer in our countries are extremely rade. But there are some which are really works of art. We could never have expected to find in these works of mere savages such firm designs,
so bold an outline, such truth to living nature, such fidelity in giving to Thus art preceded the each animal its own appropriate attributes.

development of material civilisation. In that primitive age, though man had not yet risen above a savage state, he already showed This subUme faculty, which artistic spirit and a love of the beautiful. God had given him when He "made man after His image," was aroused, even before he felt the desire to ameliorate the hard conditions
earliest

Man' had then also a religious belief, for the sitting position of the skeletons in the sepulchral grottoes of these primitive times, such as that of Aurignac, incontestably denotes some funeral rites, the origin
of his life.

of which
the
first

is

necessarily connected with

some idea of a

future

life.

From

days of his appearance on earth

man

has borne his head erect


30

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

to

and looked up
tueri."
5.

heaven.

" Os homini sublime dedit ccrlumque

facts relating to

We

have

as yet

spoken only of

France, for there

only has the study of the remains of mankind previous to the present
geological period, been completely carried out, there alone have the obser-

In more than departments of France settlements of the " reindeer age " have been found. They have been discovered also in Belgium, Germany,
thirty

vations been sufficiently numerous, and properly tested.

number indeed, but about the same time as in France, and that he lived at first under the same conditions. Europe, too, is not the only part of the world where discoveries have been made to prove the extreme antiquity of the presence of man, his co-existence with the extinct mammalia, and his original ignorance of the use of metals. M. Louis Lartet has found in the Lebanon, near Beyrout, caves, where chipped flints are mixed with the remains
England,
Sjiain, Italy,

and Greece,

in

smaller

sufficient to

prove that in these countries,

man appeared

of bones of ruminant animals.

foot of the

In India quaternary deposits at the

Himalayas furnish axes of the same type as those of the valley of the Somme. They have also been found in America. A French naturalist, M. Marcou, has discovered in the States of Mississippi, Missouri, and Kentucky, human bones, stone arrowheads and axes, in beds below those which contain the remains of the mastodon, megatheidum, megalonyx, hipparion, and other animals, which have disappeared from the present fauna. Thus we see that the human species was already spread over the greater part of the surface of the
globe, during the quarternary geological period.

We

therefore bring

together under our general head and into one group the two successive

ages of the great carnivora, and of the reindeer, which both belong to
that geological period,

of

man

with species of animals

quite different

and are both characterised by the co-existence now extinct under conditions of climate from the present, and give to these two united ages the

name of the "

Archseolithic epoch," an expression taken from the Greek,

and distinguishing the epoch thus named as the most ancient of those in which man, still ignorant of the art of working metals, exclusively employed chipped flints for his arms and utensils.

Section
I.

2.

Remains of the Neolithic Epoch.

marked by the must be noted that, however great
is

The

third age in the gradual progress of

it

man

appearance of polished stone, for

are the evidences of skill in

working stone and bone in the preceding epoch, no one specimen of any weapon or utensil has been found bear-

NEOLITHIC EPOCH.
ing traces of polish.

31

The

quaternary- alhivium and the caverns of that

age do not supply polished stone a.xes of flint, serpentine, nephrite, and obsidian these are found in the peat pits, and in mounds, doubtless of great antiquity, but which are raised above the level of the soil ; in
:

sepulchres very ancient, but later than the

commencement

of our geolo-

gical period, and in some entrenched camps, at a later time occupied by the Romans. They have been found by thousands nearly all over

France, in Belgium, Switzerland, England, in Italy, Greece, Spain,

Germany and

Scandinavia.

must not suppose, however, that an abrupt and sudden change separated the "reindeer age" from the "polished stone age." They passed from one to the other by successive gradations, which proves that the new period of the development of human industry was the Modem geology has noticed result of slow and continued progress. an exactly parallel fact, that the transition from the quaternary to the present geological period was not sudden and violent, but gradual. It was the result of successive and local phenomena, which gave our continents their present form, and changed though by slow degrees the
climate so as to lead to the extinction or drive to northern latitudes
species of animals.
2.

We

some

The

axes of the polished stone period differ in fomi from those

later age

of the Archasolithic epoch, which are

whereas those of the

sharpened almost to a point, have a broad cutting edge. Some of

itself,

the axes of this period had handles of stag's horn, or of wood, whilst
others seem to have been held in the hand
as knives or saws, for bone,

and

to

have been used

hom,

or wood.

With

that exception the

nature of the weapons and utensils

difference being in the skill

is the same in both ages, the only and perfection of the workmanship, for

there are axes, knives, barbed arrowheads, scrapers, awls, sling stones,
disks, rude pottei7, necklace beads of shells or earth,

the preceding epoch.

given to

which belong to Although the name "polished stone age" is the third phase of the prehistoric period, it must not be

imagined that everything belonging to it, is polished, the finish, the perfection of execution of unpolished weapons and utensils, often show
that they belong to the

new

period.

It will

therefore be better to use

the expression "Neolithic" epoch, as sufficient to denote the relatively

recent character of this

new age

of the stone period.

In different parts of Europe unmistakable remains have been observed

of workshops where the stone implements of this epoch were made, their
site

being shown by numerous unfinished pieces found side by side with weapons of the same material completely finished. The flints seem
elsewhere to be polished.

generally to have been chipped to shape in the quarry, and then carried

There were,

therefore, in that age centres

of industry, special manufactories, and as a consequence there must have

32

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The people who manufactured arms and
fruits

been commerce.

utensils

on so

large a scale could not have lived in a complete state of isolation, or they

could not have disposed of the

carried

of their labour.

They must have

them

to

people
that

who were

not

in possession of materials so

suitable for
soil.

tlie

purpose, and exchanged them for some produce of the

man's requirements established step by step the life. Axes have been found in Brittany, of fibrolite, a material which in France is only found in Auvergne and the neighbourhood of Lyons. In the Isle of Elba a great number of implements of stone have been foimd, the use of which was certainly anterior to the opening of the iron mines by the Etruscans, the greater
it is

Thus

various relations of social

part of these
island,

weapons are made of flint, which is not found on the and must therefore have been brought by sea. The remains of the animals found with works of human art belonging to the Neolithic age, agree with other indications in showing that they do not belong to the quaternary, but to our own geological epoch, and we are thus on the threshold of historical times. The great camivora, and pachydermata, such as the elephant and rhinoceros no longer existed. The Urns {bos primigenius), which was still living at the commencement of history, is the only animal of that age belonging no longer to our contemporary fauna. The bones found with the polished
stone utensils are those of the horse, stag, sheep, goat, chamois, wild

boar, wolf, dog, fox, badger

and hare.

The

reindeer no longer inhabits

our countries.

On

the other hand,

we

begin to find domestic animals,

It is

which were absolutely wanting

in the caves of Perigord.

evident

had become what it now is. Every one must have seen in France or in England one of those 3. strange monuments of enormous rough stones known as Dolmens and Cromlechs, and which have been long regarded as Druidical altars or sanctuaries. A careful examination of these monuments has shown them to be tombs, originally almost always covered by a tumulus, under which the construction of rough stones was buried. The greater part of them have been plundered ages ago ; but in the small number laid bare by the excavations of our days, there has been an entire absence of any kind of metal. Nothing has been found with the bones and ashes of the dead, except weapons of flint, quartz, jade, serpentine, and some There are however some few in which articles of earthenware. bronze have been found, and this shows that the use of these monuments was continued down to the period when the use of metals was known. All indications concur in proving that the Dolmens and Cromlechs of
that the climate of our countries

France were the sepulchres of a race distinct from the Celts who at a later time inhabited Gaul, and that the Celts aimihilated, or rather subjugated and amalgamated with themselves, this earlier race. Many conjectures have been made as to the branch of the

NEOLITHIC EPOCH.
human
premature, and without solid foundation.

33

family to which these people belonged, but they are at present

It is not only in France and in England that monuments of this kind have been found. They have been observed in Syria, in Algeria, and even in Hindustan. Axes and knives of flint, obsidian, and compact quartz, which have been taken from the tombs of Attica, Boeotia, Achaia, and of the Cyclades, are identical with similar weapons found on the soil of France those which have been found in the various provinces of Russia Scandinavia has its Dolmens, its funeral are exactly of the same type.
;

mounds, which present a complete analogy to those of France. The bodies have been buried in the tomb without being burned bronze is found even The objects in less frequently in them than in the French Dolmens. stone and in bone in these tombs have great variety of fonn, and are of But a notable portion of the Danish peculiar delicacy of execution. collections come not from Dolmens, but from peat pits, where the objects are found in the lowest beds, with trunks of partly decomposed pine trees, a fact of the highest importance for establishing the antiquity of the Neolithic age, for this tree has for ages disappeared from the forests of Denmark, and has been replaced by the oak and beech. Two
;

circumstances will explain the peculiar degree of perfection attained in first, the period of the exclusive use of the Scandinavian stone work,

stone tools was more prolonged there than in any other part of Europe,
so that
flint

human industry had more

is

time to perfect the work

secondly, the
readily than

found there

of superior quality, and fractures

more

that of other countries.

study of science other 4. Again, Scandinavia has opened to the most curious deposits of the same phase in the histoiy of man. On the coasts of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, in various places, considerable quantities of shells of oysters and of other eatable mollusca are found. they are These deposits have not been brought together by the waves imxddbiger, manifestly remains of feasts, whence the name Kjcckken kitchen middens, under which they are known in the countiy, they are often hundreds of yards in extent, and nearly ten feet thick. No metallic object has ever been met with, but quantities of chipped flints, fragment s of worked bone and horn, and rude hand-made potteiy the rudeness of the workmanship of these objects resembles the cavern period, the But the style of the weapons second age of the Archseolithic epoch. and utensils should not be the only criterion by which to arrive at the date of deposits of this nature. Above all, the fauna which they disclose must be taken into serious consideration. Now in the kitchen middens
;
;

with no remains of species of a former geological age excepting the lynx and urus, both of which have disappeared only since historical times. No bones of animals which have ceased to inhabit
those countries have been discovered, but indications have even been

we meet

34

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

found of the pig and dog in a domesticated state. Tiic kitchen middens then must be placed with the most ancient of the Dohnens. If art nas so nidimentaiy, it is only because the tribes, who have left on the
their neighbours,

borders of the Nortli Sea the relics of their rude feasts, were behind who, more favourably situated, had already begun to
to civilisation.

advance on the road

Deposits analogous to the kitchen middens have lately been discovered in other countries. They have been found in Cornwall, on
.the north coast of Scotland, in the

Orkney islands, and very far from on the coasts of Provence. The " terramarre " of the banks of the Po, a mass composed of cinders, burnt wood, worked flints and bone, bones of animals whose flesh seems to have been eaten, fragments of pottery, and other vestiges of the life of the early ages, show great analogy with the deposits of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and seem evidently to have belonged to the same period in the development
these,

of humanity.

But the most interesting remains of the Neolithic age, those which mark the last phase of the progi-ess of the people of Western Europe before the introduction of
5.

evidence the most advanced state of society and

the use of metal, are the lake villages.

1853 the unusually low level of the I>ake of Zurich brought to light the remains of dwellings on piles which seemed of very high antiIn
quity.

Dr. F.

Keller having called attention to this discovery, the

exploration of other lakes

similar remains.

was commenced

to see if they contained

any

The

investigations, conducted

by M. Troyon, were

crowned with complete success. Not only were these lake villages found in a great number of Swiss lakes, but in those of Savoy, Dauphiny, of Northern Italy, and even of Greece. The dwellings of
these lake villages were near the banks, constructed on a vast platform

formed by layers of tmnks of trees and poles, bound together by interlaced branches, and made solid with clay, the whole supported by piles driven down in the water. Herodotus exactly describes habitations of this kind which existed in his time in the lakes of Macedonia.* Modern travellers have found entire villages constructed in the same way in

New

Guinea.
of building dwellings on piles in the midst of the water
in

The custom
was continued
villages
utensils

Helvetia and the neighbouring countries for

many

centuries, for the objects

which have been recovered from these lake belong to veiy different ages. Whilst from the most recent, have been recovered of bronze and iron metals the use of

which determines a new period in the progress of human inventions the others, and by far the greater number, weapons and utensils
*

in of

Herodotus, Book

V., chap. 16.


CHRONOLOGY OF THE STONE
ship, these

AGE.
35

In form and workmanpolished stone and bone only have been found. much resemble the objects furnished by the Dolmens and

peat pits of France, Great Britain, Belgium and Scandinavia, only they The animals whose bones have been dredged up are in greater variety.

from under the lake villages are the same as

still

inhabit Switzerland

brown bears, badgers,

only are

aurochs, pole-cats, otters, wolves, dogs, foxes, wild

cats, beavers, wild boars, pigs, goats, sheep.

The elk,

the urus, the auroch

wanting among
era.

the present fauna of the country, but

at the

we know

from written testimony that they were found there

of the Christian

commencement

Thus the lake villages clearly characterise in Western Europe the close of the Neolithic age, and the people who had built them continued stiU to live there up to the time when they first The collection learned the use of metals from more advanced nations.
also in

of objects which the Swiss savants have obtained from their sites prove many ways that even in most ancient times there was a real Pottery was still hand-made, but attained to a great civilisation.
variety of forms,

and exhibited some taste in ornament. The largest winter and wheat, barley, oats, peas, and lentiles, have been recovered in them. The inhabitants of the lake villages were therefore given to agriculture, an art absolutely unknown to the men whose remains are preserved in the caves of They domesticated animals, and they knew the use of the Perigord. miU. Finally, in the lake villages of the earliest age shreds of stuffs have been met with, which prove that, no longer content with skins as clothing, men even then knew how to spin and weave the threads of
vases served for storing grain for
flax.

Section
I.

III.

Chronology of these Two Epochs.

The

chronological succession of the different periods of the exis

clusively stone-using age

lished.

thus

now

positively

and precisely estab-

We

find there the three first steps of the

after

human

race in the

which the use of metal marked a new Not but what it is quite advance, and one of the highest importance. possible to exaggerate the state of advancement to which the first use of

march of

civilisation,

metals corresponds.

The ancients tell us that the Massagetje,* who barbarous in the highest degree, were in possession of metallic were implements, and among the tribes of Ugrian race, the working of mines
In the a social state but very little advanced. been found of ancient excavations Oural and Altai mountains traces have sometimes more than thirty metres deep. Some negro people, also.
certainly

commenced

in

Herodotus, Book

I.,

chap. 201, 215, 216.

36

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

liow to work metals, and even to manufacture steel, and that Nevertheless it is incontestable that without being really civilised. working metals has been one of the most powerful agents of the art of

know

among people whose civilisation is oldest that we find this invention known at the earliest date. Except in the Bible where the individual is specified who first practised this art, the history of the discovery of metals is among all ancient nations The invention appeared so marvellous and benesurrounded by fables. Thus ficial, that the popular imagination saw in it a gift from the gods. almost always the pretended inventor who is named is only the mytholoprogress, and
it

is

precisely

gical personification of
is

fire,

which

is

the natural agent of the work.

Such

the Twachtri of the Vedas, the Hephajstus of the Greeks, and the

Vulcan of the Romans. The first metal employed for weapons and utensils was copper, the ore of wliich is most easily reduced to a metallic state, and which men soon learned how to harden by an The employment of iron, which is alloy of tin, so as to form bnjnze. more difficult to work, marked a new progress in this invention. 2. Every branch of the human race, without exception, has passed through the three stages of the age of stone, and its traces have everywhere been found. But, though each people and each country present
to the observer

the

same succession of three

ages, corresponding to

three periods of social development,

we

should greatly err were

we

to

suppose that these different people passed through these stages at the same time. There is no necessary synchronism between these three the stone age is not an epoch stages in different parts of the world
;

which can be chronologically determined, but a

state of

human

pro-

gress which, in different countries, varied enormously in date.

Entire

populations have been discovered who, at the close of the last centuiy, and even in our own days, had not passed out of the stone age. Such

was the case with the greater number of the Polynesian tribes, when A French traveller in discovered by Captain Cook in the Pacific.
1854 found on the banks of the river Colorado, in California, an Indian who used weapons and utensils of stone and wood only. The races of the north of Europe had no civilisation till long after those of
tribe

Greece and

Italy.

The

lake villages of Switzerland certainly continued

to exist, after Marseilles

and other Greek

cities

had been founded on the

shores of Provence.

All appearances seem to indicate that

of the age of stone were
first

when

in

Europe the Dolmens

constructed, the

people of Asia had for centuries been in possession of bronze, iron, and In fact, the use all the secrets of a very advanced material civilisation. of metals in Egypt, Chaldtea, and China can be traced back to a very

remote antiquity. As we have already seen, the Biblical tradition mentions a son of the patriarch Lamech, Tubalcain, as the first who worked in copper

FIRST USE OF METALS.

and
iron,

37

some

a statement which carries back the use of metals amont,' races for more than one thousand years before the deluge.

The knowledge

of the art no doubt spread at

first

slowly,

and

for

a long time remained an exclusive monopoly in the hands of some nations, whose progress was from various causes in advance of that of
others.

The Chalybes were

bronze, which they fabricated

already renowned for weapons of iron and in their mountains, whilst at the same

time there were nomadic tribes in Central Asia who still remained conMoreover positive proofs have been discovered that tented with stone.
the invention of working in metals did not at once cause the disappearance of stone weapons. Metal articles were very valuable, and before
their

use became completely general,

many people

continued

for

economy's sake to use for some time the old utensils to which they were Among most half-savage tribes who know the art of accustomed.

working metals,
a sort of

as

do the negroes, the process even

in the tribe itself

is

secret, preserved in certain families, transmitted traditionally

from father to son, and never communicated to those who surround them and buy their manufactures. Everything leads us to suppose that this was the case during a long succession of generations in the primitive world, and consequently it might, and must, have happened that

some of the swarms of emigrants, who threw themselves

first

into the

forests of the still desert world, although they started from centres where some families had already learned to work in metals, knew themselves only how to make stone implements, and carried with them

no remembrance of the arts of their original and far distant establishThere is therefore no necessary contradiction to the Bible ments. narrative, which dates the first discovery of metallurgic art before the deluge in the fact that the red race of America, which certainly did not separate from the birthplace of humanity on the plateau of Pamir till the recollection of which event they preserved after the deluge an-ived a: its last settlement, still using utensils of stone, and that it invented for itself the art of working in metals, as is proved by the originality of the character of the work, so totally distinct from that of the Old World, And this could not only have been the case among the people of the New World, for whoever studies the ancient method of
;

working metals must find indications of three distinct centres of invenone, most ancient of tion, whence the art spread into different countries; the second in all, that of which the Bible speaks, situated in Asia, Africa, among the black race, where the use of bronze seems never to have prevailed, and where the nature of the minerals of the country the third in permitted them to arrive at once at the production of iron, America, among the red races. There has even occurred in certain cases, and under exceptional circumstances, a return to the use of stone by people who, at the time

38

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

of their emigration, were aware of the use of metals, but had not

abandoned the usages of a previous state of civilisation. This have been the case with the Polynesian race. These people, as has been proved by the valuable researches of M. de Quatrefages, were originally Malays, and so far as we can approximately dctennine
entirely

seems

to

the date of their

times,

first

emigration,

it

occurred in comparatively

modem

when we know from positive proof that the fabrication and use of metals were generally known among the Malay Islands, but without
having entirely superseded the employment of stone utensils. But the islands where the ancestors of the Polynesians first established themselves, in the neighbourhood of Otaheite, and v/here they multiplied
for

many

ages before spreading over the rest of the Australasian Archisoil.

pelago, contained no metallic veins in their

lurgy, even supposing that

The

secret of metal-

some of the emigrants possessed it, was in a few generations lost for want of use, and no recollection was preserved So the but of the stone which they had occasion to use every day. swarms of the Polynesian race remained in the " stone age," even when they came to establish themselves, as in New Caledonia, in countries
abounding in metals. 3. These remarks on the impossibility of considering the "stone age " as an historical epoch, at a fixed time, the same for all countries,
are

applicable to the present geological period, particularly to the Neolithic or " polished stone " age, certainly very short, and which

perhaps did not occur

at

all

among people who

learned early to

work metals

whilst,

thousands of years.

on the contrary, among other races it has lasted But they do not apply to the Archseolithic age,

corresponding to the quaternary period.

the globe, and in the elevation of the continents,

The changes in the climate of mark positive and

limits,

synchronous epochs in time with determinable

although

it is

not

possible to estimate their duration either in years or in ages.

Western Europe, in Asia, and in America. Those conditions of climate and of the superabundance of water which immediately succeeded it, and in the midst of which we find the most ancient vestiges of mankind, were common to the whole northern hemisphere, and had ceased to exist ^hadbeen replaced by the present conditions in the most ancient times to which we can follow back the civilisation of Egypt or Chaldasa. Geological remains do not permit us to suppose and this simple argument is a sufficient one that our countries can have been still in that condition of climate peculiar to the age of the great pachyderms and of the reindeei", when Asia had arrived at the state in which it now is. The quaternary period was simultaneous on the whole surface of the globe. But we i-epeat, the change of climate and of the fauna is anterior to all remains of the most ancient oriental civilisation, to all real history. It
glacial period

The

was simultaneous

in


ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
follows that the remains of

39

human industry which are found in tile and in caverns of the same epoch, whether in France quaternary beds or in the Himalayas, certainly belong to primitive humanity, to the most ancient ages of the existence of man on the earth. They throw direct light on the mode of life of primitive man, whilst it is only by analogy that we can draw from the remains of the Neolithic epoch information as to ages really primordial, just as we may do from the study
of the
life

of nations

who

are

still

leading a savage

life.

Section IV.
1.

Prehistoric Arch.^olooy of the Bible.

Do

the statements of the Biblical tradition, corroborated by the

universal recollections of mankind, agree with, or contradict, the positive

facts relative only to the material life of the first

men, inscribed on the take the facts themselves in their simplicity, apart from the rash conclusions which some scholars have drawn from them to suit a preconceived theory, that by no means follows necessarily from them if we examine at the same time the Bible story with that breadth of historical exegesis which is admitted by the most severe orthodoxy, and is refused only by those who would at any price destroy the authority of the Sacred Books no But as the attempt to prove such a concontradiction can be found. made with marked persistency in a gi-eat number tradiction has been of books recently devoted to the discoveries of the new science of prehistoric archaeology, it becomes the duty of the historian to pause and carefully examine the three questions on which it is possible that gi-ave difficulties may exist, and where a certain school has pretended to find that the Bible is contradicted by the discoveries of the remains of fossil man. These three questions are the antiquity of man, the savage and miseralale state of the first men of whom traces have been found, and finally, the absence of geological traces of the Deluge. The Antiquity of Man. Undoubtedly positive facts prove that 2. the antiquity of man on the earth is much greater than has been inferred from an inexact and too narrow interpretation of the Biblical But even if the historical interpretation, always susceptible narrative. of modification, and on which the Church pronounces no doctrinal opinion, must not be such as is now generally admitted, will the Will it be conauthority of the narrative itself be in the least shaken ? tradicted on any one point? Assuredly not, for the Bible gives no fixed date for the creation of man. One of the most learned men of our age in oriental literature, and who was at the same time an eminent Christian, Silvester de Sacy, was
quaternary beds of the crust of the earth
?

If

we

"

40
in

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

the habit of saying,
ecclesiastic,

and venerable
France,
it is left

"There is no who was

also,

Biblical clironology."

The wise
exegesis in
iniccrtain;

the oracle of sacred

M. I'Abbe Le Hir, says to human science to fix

" Biblical chronology

is

the date of the creation of our species.

which have been attempted on Biblical chronology rest in fact solely on the genealogy of the Patriarchs from Adam to Abraham, and on the statements as to the duration of their lives. But first the primaiy element in a real and scientific chronology is absolutely wanting. We have no means of determining the measure of time by which the length of each Patriarch's life is computed, and nothing in the world is more vague than the word "year," when it has no precise explanation. Moreover, between the different versions of the Bible, between the text of the Hebrew and Septuagint (whose authority in chronology is equal), there are, in the generations from Noah to Abraham, and in the years of life, differences so great that interpreters may arrive at calculations which differ by more than 2,000 years, In the text, according to the version which they select as their guide. they as it has come down to us, the numbers are anything but certain have been subjected to alterations which have rendered them discordant; alterations whicli, alterations the extent of which we cannot estimate however, need not trouble the mind of any Christian, for the more or less exact transcription of a number must not be confounded with the question of the Divine inspiration, which has given Holy Scripture to Moreover, teach man his origin, his way, his duty, and his end. besides the want of certainty as to the original reading of the numbers given in the Bible for the existence of each of the Patriarchs from
calculations
;

The

Noah
by
a

to Abraliam, the genealogy of these Patriarchs can be considered

critic

good

only as having the same character as the genealogies

habitually preserved
instance

among Semitic people

which

establish direct affiliation

among the Arabs for by the enumeration of the

most remarkable personages, omitting many intermediate steps. These decisive arguments prove that there is no real Biblical chronology, and therefore no contradiction between that chronology and the However distant may be the date to which discoveries of science. researches on fossil man may one day carry back the existence of the human race (as well as the Egyptian monuments, even now incompatible
with the number of 4,000 years hitherto generally accepted), the narrative of the sacred books will be neither shaken nor contradicted, for it assigns

no positive date,

either for

tlie

creation of
is,

man

or for the deluge.

the last creature

All

that the Bible expressly says

that

man was

whom

God placed on the earth, and this the discoveries of science, far from denying, confirm in the clearest manner. But while we admit that religion need not limit the freedom of
scientific

speculations

as

to the antiquity of

man, we are bound to

CONDITION OF PRIMITIVE MAN.

state

4I

to, however far it may have no standard by which to determine, even approximately, the number of ages which have elapsed since the time of the first men whose remains have been found in

that science

can as yet assign no date

carry back, this antiquity.

We

the quaternary deposits.

tions,

We

are in fact treating of geological forma-

whose

rate of deposit

may be
is

accelerated or retarded by widely

different causes

which we have no means of estimating.

so

Nothing,
moreover,

even in the present day,

fluviatile

variable

as

the rate of deposit of

alluvium, like that of the quaternary epoch.

And

the occurrences of that period cannot be compared with those of the

present time, as causes were then in operation on a scale which no

longer

exists.

So

that the hundreds of thousands of years,

which some
first

authors with too lively imaginations have reckoned, from the

of fossil
guesses.

traces

man to our The date

o-\vn times, are really baseless

hypotheses, and mere

.species,

of the appearance of the

is still

human

according

to the geological i^ecord,

for ever.

unknown, and

will probably i-emain so

The miserable Condition of Primitive 2lan. Here again no conis found between the Mosaic record and prehistoric Archaeology. The writers who have attempted to prove a contradiction have but little studied Christian doctrines, and have lost sight of one important fact ; the doctrine of the fall. They have believed that the miserable state of the life of the savages of the quaternary epoch was a contradiction of the happy and cloudless life of Eden, of the state of absolute perfection in which the first man issued from the hands of his Creator. Thus they ignored the great gidf between the Eden life of our first ancestors, and that of these human races, however ancient they may be, fixed by disobedience, that original fault which changed the condition of man and condemned him to painful toil, to sorrow, and
3.

tradiction

death.

Nothing, however, can be more instructive for the Christian

sees
light

who

them by the light of sacred tradition, than the facts brought to by geological discoveries among the quaternary deposits. The

condemnation pronounced by the Divine anger is imprinted in a striking manner on the hard and toilsome life which it is evident that the tribes scattered on the surface of the earth then led, under the conditions of climate of that epoch, and in the midst of formidable animals against whom it was necessary every moment to defend their lives. It seems that the weight of that sentence fell then, immediately after the fall,

more heavily upon our race than shows us the first men who came
ice,

it

has since done.

Antl

when

science

to our countries, living in the midst of

Esquimaux now
duced
in the

under conditions of climate analogous to those under which the live, conditions which up till then had not been pro-

temperate zone, and which have not since appeared there,

42

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

to recall the ancient Persian tradition, in complete

we are naturally led

agreement with the statements of the Bilile, on the subject of the fall of mankind through the fault of their first ancestor, which places in tlie first rank among the punishments wliich followed that fault, as well as death and sickness, the appearance of intense and permanent cold which man could hardly bear, and which rendered the earth almost
uninhabitable.*

must not, however, exaggerate this picture. If geological disand miserable conditions of the life of aboFar from riginal man, they do not show him at all in an abject state. this, man in the quaternary age was in full possession of those faculties which are the sublime heritage of our species. He had high aspirations,
.

We

coveries reveal the hard

noble

instincts, in entire contrast

with merely savage

life.

He

believed
;

in a future state.

He was

already a thinking, an inventive being

and

that impassable gidf which the possession of a soul has fixed between

him and those animals who most nearly approach him in organisation, was then as wide as it ever was to be. Finally, we must not forget that

we have as yet found traces only of thinly scattered tribes who had launched out into the midst of forests and deserts, who lived by hunting and fishing, at an enormous distance from the cradle of humanity,
round which were still concentrated the chief settlements of the children of Adam. Thus though these first adventurous explorers of the " wide, wide world " were ignorant of agriculture, and had no domesticated animals, we must not absolutely conclude that the agricultural and pastoral modes of life did not exist in the more compactly grouped
settlements, naturally
habitations.

more advanced, which had not

left

their original
statesoil,

There

exists, then,

nothing to contradict the Bible

in the

ment, which mentions Cain and Abel, the one a cultivator of the
the other a shepherd, in the neighbourhood of Eden,

second
into a

generation of mankind.

To

assert that such a contradiction follows

from the discoveries in France or in America,

would be

to

fall

mistake, similar to that of confounding the trappers of the backwoods

of Canada, with the agricultural population round Quebec and Montreal.

But besides

this,

was not the

tells

life

of those

men whose remains have

all its details

been preserved
Paradise
?

in the

quaternary deposits exactly in

us of the
first

what

the Bible narrative

generation of

men

after leaving

For protection against the cold they had but the skins of kill and this is what the book of Genesis For arms and utensils they had only expressly says of Adam and Eve. rudely cut stones; and the Bible names the first worker in metal six generations after Adam, and we know how many centuries these antethe animals they contrived to
;

diluvian generations represent in the Bible narrative.

lected

The

facts col-

by prehistoric Archasology prove that the

*

progi'ess of material

Vendidad Sadi, chap.

i.

UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE.

civilisation is the special

43

work of man, and the

result of successive in-

Pagan cosmogonies, mankind them as purely human by special revelation from heaven it represents inventions, and names their authors shows the gradual progress of our species to be the work of the free hand of man, fulfilling, most often
ventions.

Our

sacred tradition does not, like the

assert that the arts of civilisation

were supernaturally taught to

;

unconsciously, the plans of Divine Providence.

This point is the only one on which there is, we 4. Tke Deluge. must acknowledge, a serious difficulty. There is however no radical and irreconcilable contradiction between the Bible narrative and geological facts but there is a problem, the key to which has not yet been found, and on this we can but speculate, the place of the Mosaic Deluge,
;

among
period.
It

the

phenomena which our

earth witnessed during the quaternaiy

now been proved, in a manner rendering discussion impossible, no one of the three chief deposits constituting the quaternary strata have, as a merely superficial observation had led geologists
has
that

been produced by a great universal cataclysm, such as the deluge must have been, if we understand the expressions of
to suppose,

the Bible

literally.

These

different deposits are the results of partial

and

produced by similar conditions of climate successively m all parts of the earth, but which have not affected the whole surface, their effects never being visible more than 300 metres
local deluges,

above the actual level of the sea. It is true that if the interpretation generally received, which makes the flood universal, as to man and the regions which he inhabited, not as to the whole surface of the globe, be admitted, these statements of science will not raise any insurmountable difficulties for exegesis, because any one of the partial deluges, so frequent during the quaternary period, would fulfil the con-

now

which chastised the iniquities of the human race. But this is how the difficult problem arises. On one hand we have the Bible narrative, supported by the universal tradition of all races of mankind, with one exception, proclaiming the gi^eat fact of the deluge.
ditions of the deluge

On

the

other,

geological discoveries

show man already spread over

nearly the whole surface of the earth in the time of the great camivora

and pachydermata of extinct species ; since which no trace can be found of a cataclysm so universal as to destroy all mankind. Moreover, no violent interruption is found since this epoch in the course of the progress of humanity, which advances step by step towards perfection ; and the species of animals, then living but now extinct, disappeared
gradually and by slow degrees.
disproved, and
it

Neither of these propositions can be

is

therefore necessary to attempt to reconcile them.

that the definite solution has not yet

But we must repeat

been found,

we

can but suggest hypotheses.

Three seem

possible.

We

shall

44

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

explain them carefully, without pronouncing in favour of either, and

without attributing to them a certainty which they cannot claim.

Tlie fust coiisists in throwing back the probaljle date of tlie deluge, and

regarding

it

as anterior to the quaternary epoch.

in the Bible

The absence

of precise

between the deluge and the time of Abraham renders this possible. This hypothesis rests on the vestiges of tlie existence of man, which scholars of great merit, M. Desnoyers and the Abbe .Bourgeois, think they have found in the uppe'- beds of the tertiary strata, but which, though probable, nevertheless require farther confirmation. If man had already appeared in our countries at the close of the tertiary geological period, a sudden, entire, and prolonged interruption separates The Mosaic these primeval men from those of the quaternary epoch. deluge may then be identified with that immense irruption of waters over great part of Europe and Asia which closed the tertiary period, and produced what geologists know as the northern erratic block phenomena, when floating icebergs carried over all parts of England, the plains of Germany, and Russia, enormous boulders brought from the neighbourhood of the Pole. The second hypothesis is that which has been recently supported by the Abbe Lambert.^ It consists in regarding the universality of the deluge as to the men spread on the face of the earth, as comprising successive events, and in including all the partial diluvian phenomena
chronology
of the quaternary period.

And

finally,

the third limits the universality of the deluge, both with

this great fact,

the extent of terrestrial surface, and would consider which has left such lively remembrances in the mind ot mankind, as having extended only to the principal centre of humanity, to those who had remained near its primitive cradle, without reaching the scattered tribes who had already spread themselves far away in almost

regard to

man and

desert

regions.

It

thus explains the absence of all tradition of the

all

deluge
tire

among

the black race, whilst

other people are agreed as to

event

itself.

It is certain that the

Bible narrative

commences by

relating facts

common

to the

whole human

species, confining itself sub-

sequently to the annals of the race peculiarly chosen by the designs of

Providence.
of the story

Tire theory of which

we

speak, only

makes

this

narrowing

commence
is

at

an

earlier period

than has been usual.

The

hypothesis
ideas.

a very bold one, and discards some universally received

find
it

But we
are

sustained by scholars of the greatest merit, and

as sincere

who
*

well

known

Christians,

M. SchcEbelt and M.

d'Omaliusd'Halloy.t

Le Deluge

JMosdiqiie, r/iisioire, et la geologie, Paris, 1868.

+ De

du Deluge, Paris, 1858. X Discours prononcS a la classe des Sciences de V Academic de

I' uitiversalite

Belgiqtie,

BriLxelles, 1866.


UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE.
This theory
anthropology,
is

45

supported by one of the most eminent autliorities on

in

as well as by Cuvier, who has famous discourse on the " Revolutions du (j-lobe," an attempt to prove the agreement between sacred tradition and geology. An eminent naturalist of the order of Jesuits, the R. P. Bellynck, without going so far as to adopt it, finally admits that it has nothing expressly opposed to orthodoxy. This hypothesis is best

M. de Quatrefages,
it

expressly taught

his

received by anthropologists, that

is,

students of the natural history of

man, because it leaves them gi'cater latitude to explain the immense changes which have taken place in certain races of mankind, by dating back the separation of these races from the main stem of the descendants of Adam, and placing it in a period when climatic and atmospheric influences were much more powerful in their action than at present, because phenomena both teiTCstrial and atmospheric had then much greater intensity. It is not opposed to the sense which the poetical expressions in many parts of the Bible permit us to place on the story of the deluge, many passages in the sacred books can be brought together, in which the words "all men," "all the earth," are used, and where it is impossible to understand them literally. An attentive
examination of the
first

chapters of Genesis, a
it

carefiil

weighing of the

words, furnishes indications from which

may

be presumed that Moses

did not intend to describe the deluge as absolutely universal, but on the

human race had been pre" The author of the book of Genesis," says M. Schcebel, " in speaking of the men who were swallowed up by the deluge, always describes them as Haadam,' 'Adamite humanity.' Does not this show that he speaks of one single family, not yet divided into different nations, Goim ? But this division was already known to the human
contrary admitted that some portions of the
served.
'

'

'

race."

" The author,

in the 4th chapter of Genesis, has

Cain, living and multiplying, separated from the race of Seth both
distance and by religion and manners.

shown the race of by This family was not then in

from the race of Seth.
the punishment of the

the Adamite unity,

it

was

really a people distinct

Why,
it

if this distinct

people were comprised

deluge, did not the author say so ?

?

Why

did he not in any

way imply

The crime which brought the deluge on mankind,

as the author tells

was an excess of corruption, of depravity, in Ihe sons of "Jehovah,"* Thus those who knew Jehovah, who invoked his The descendants of Cain did name, were the cause of the deluge. not know Jehovah, they never called on His name, for " Cain went out
us,

his worshippers.

* It will be well to bear in mind, with regard to this quotation from Schcebel, that the expression is Sons of God (Elohuii) the name Jehovah does not occur in the passage Gen. vi. 4. Tr.

M.


ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

46

from the presence of Jehovah." What is still more significant is that when Moses, speaking of Jabal, son of Lamech, says that he was " the
father of such as dwell in tents," the construction of the

Hebrew phrase
the author was

impMes the praefit, " those who dwell,"

writing.

at the time

when

Moreover the question whether, according to the Bible itself, some who were not in the ark with Noah may not have escaped the 'deluge, has in ancient times been discussed among Jews as well as Christians, and the Church has not pronounced formally on the subject. According to the text of the LXX., Methuselah must have lived six
years after the deluge, whereas the

Hebrew

text places his death in the

same year as that event. * The statements of the Greek text have been Some Christian writers of the followed by many Hebrew teachers. early ages have also adopted it, amongst others chronologers such as Eusebius. St. Jerome, in his " Questions upon Genesis, " tells us that in his time this famous difficulty was the subject of many controversies.
5.

To resume

Biblical

tradition,

and the discoveries made by the

researches of

modem

science on the most ancient remains of man, have

thrown light on the history of the primitive ages of our species, from two opposite points of view. The Bible has chiefly enunciated the facts which have some moral bearing, whence religious teaching may be
extracted.

Prehistoric archseolog)', from the nature of

is

its

only sources of
adjoin without

information,

exclusively confined to material facts.

The two domains

of religion and of science here, as

everywhere

else,

* The date of the death of Methuselah, as compared with that of the deluge, according to the received chronology' of the three principal versions of Scripture, is as shown in the following calculation
:

47

THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

encroaching on each other's ground; hut in their points of contact, as

we

shown, sacred tradition and science nowhere contracUct each The dehige is a problem not yet indeed definitely solved, but other. there is nothing in the naiTative in-econcilable with science. We

have

cannot better conclude

Abbe Lambert

" Science
all
it

this

difficult

chapter than in the words of the

has no right to ask from the inspired

discover, for all
it

writer reasons for

may

it

may

suppose

it

has

discovered, in the material

universe which

studies.

All that can

reasonably be asked
tradicted

is

that facts proved

It
is

by science should not be conit

;

by
is

Scripture.

not therefore necessary to prove the

;

ag7-eement of scientific facts with the sacred text

is

enough

to

prove

that there

no incompatibility, no contradiction
is

that nothing in the

sacred narrative
discoveries of

contraiy to scientific truth or reason, and that the

science

may

without danger be employed to

fill

the

vacant spaces in the Mosaic narrative."

CHAPTER

IV.

HUMAN RACES AND

THEIR LANGUAGES.

Memoirs of the Ethnologiral Chief authorities for General Ethnography Publications of the .Socicte EthnoSocieties of Paris and Neiu York. Pritchard, Researches into the Natural History of logique de Paris. Pickering, The Races of Man and their Geographical Manki7id. Latham, The Natural History of the Distribution, London, 1851. Edwards, Des characteres physioloVarieties of Man, London, 1850. Nott and Gliddon, Types of giques des Races hwnaines, Paris, 1829. Mankind, Boston, 1854. D'Omalius i^W^iAoy, Des Races Imniaines, Hollard, De rhomme et des Races huniaines, Paris, Paris, 1845. ^- De Gobineau, Essai sur Pinegalite des Races huniaines, 1853. Paris, 1855. Knox, The Races of Men, London, 1850. Bonstetten, Hhoinme du Midi et Phomnie du N^ord, chap. 5 Geneva, 1824. Hotz, Foissac, De r influence des climats sur rhomme, Paris, 1837.

The moral and intellectual diversity of Races, Philadelphia, 1856. Camper, Dissei-tation sur les varietes tiaturelles qui characterisent la physionomie des hommes, 17QI. A. Maury, La Terre et Phomme, Paris, 1857. De Quatrefages, Rapport sur les progres de Panihro-

pologie, Paris, 1868.

For Linguistic Science: Michaelis, De P influence des opinions stir Ic IanAdelung, Mithridates, Berlin, 1806-1817. gage, Bremen, 1762. Bopp, Grammaire comparee des langues Indo-Etovpecnncs, (Breal's translation), Paris, 1865-67. Balbi, Atlas cthnographique du Globe,

Paris, 1826.

1836.

Kapp,

Pott,

Versuch einer Physiologic der Sprache, Stuttgard, Neve, Etymologische Forschungen, Lemgo, 1833-6.


48

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Introduction h Phistoire ghiSrale des litteraturcs Onentales, Louvain, ]\Iarcel, Language as a means of Mental Cnltnrc, London, 1845. Oliry, Etude Itistoriqtie et philologique sur le partkipe passe et les 1853. verbes auxiliaires, Paris, 1852. Egger, Notions ctemcntaircs de granimaire coniparee, Paris, 1854. Renan, Histoirc generate des langues simitiques, Paris, 1855. De Torigine du langage, Paris, 1858. Pott, Die tJngleichheit Menschlicher Rassen, Lemgo, 1856. A. Maury, La Terre et Phovime, Paris, 1857. Max Miiller, Lessons on the Science of Lang7iage. F. Baudry, Granimaire comparee des la7igues classiques, Paris, 1868. Zt" fournal de pliilologie comparee, Berlin, edited by

M. Adalbert Kuhn.

Section

I.

The Unity of the Human Race and

Varieties.

its

I.

Sacred

varieties

tradition teaches us that the whole human race and all its descend from one single original pair. Divine inspiration

alone could pronounce in a definite and precise manner on a point of

such primary importance in a religious, as well as in a philosophical,

point of view
tianity,
;

for in this is involved the

redemption.
;

Human knowledge
which

fundamental doctrine of Chriscannot venture on positive

is

assertions in a matter such as this,

is

too deep for research.

It

only by induction that reason can trace the

the only result
fact, that
all
its

human

race back to an
is

original couple

investigations

have attained
to

to

demonstrate the
single species,
its

the varieties of

mankind belong

one

which almost necessarily supposes one

single couple for

original authors.

There are now two schools of

physical organisation of

naturalists devoted to the study of the

man

the

one

admits,
race
;

in conformity

with

sacred tradition, the unity of the

that

human
and

the other supposes

many

species of

men

appeai^ed,

in different places,

but the

authorities of the latter persuasion are

not agreed as to the

stated

number
sixteen.

of these species,

which are variously

called
latter

from two

to

The two

theories are

Monogenistic and Polygenistic.

The

professors of the

opinion follow as a rule preconceived philo-

sophical ideas, and are really less naturalists, than enemies to Bible
doctrines.

All scholars

who have approached

it

the

subject

without

opinions formed beforehand, and investigated

siderations,

apart from other con-

according to the laws of scientific method and with the

have decidedly pronounced, as the result of their studies, for the Monogenistic theory. The proofs which permit science to affirm and demonstrate the unity of the human species have been recently admirably collected by M. de Qua'trefages, the most eminent anthropologist of France, and having profited by recent disassistance of observation,

ORIGIN OF RACES.
coveries,

49
satisfactory

he has presented these proofs

in a

more

form than
to

they have ever before assumed.

for a rapid

From him we
;

bon-o\v the materials

resume of these proofs, which though they belong rather

physiology, must not be neglected by history

all

for the question whetlier

men

are brothers, or whether differences of species create between

them impassable barriers, must exercise a most serious influence on the Moreover, our origin is necessarily facts and interpretation of history.
the
first

chapter in our history.

Mankind, considered from the naturalist's point of view, is subject When man therefore to the same laws as all other organic beings. by considering him alone, exhibits phenomena which cannot be solved we must question animals and even vegetables, and argue up from them
2.

to him.

By

this

method we may
"

unity of our species.

by "
from

species."

manner the But first, it is necessary to define what is meant species is an assemblage of individuals more or less
establish in a scientific

like each other,

who

are descended, or
pair

may

be considered as descended,

by an uninterrupted succession of Individuals who differ in a marked manner fi-om the general families." type are "varieties." A "race" is a variety which has been propaone
single

primitive

gated by parentage.
races must not be
tions

The

characters peculiar to each of the

human

considered as characters of

"

species;" for the varia-

which we observe in one species among animals, especially among domestic animals, and which even affect the most essential parts of
the skeleton, are

much more

considerable than those

separating the

white man from the negro, the two most widely differing types of humanity. Moreover, it is not possible to establish a well defined separation between the different races of men, which graduate insensibly
near they

one into the other. Now when we look at species of animals, however may be to each other, we may fix on one or more characteristics absent in one, present in the other, and clearly distinguishing them and this is never the case with races. These characteristics so assimilate, that even when they are numerous we can hardly say which one is really If we study " crosses," they reveal in their the distinguishing trait.
;

turn the fundamental difference between a species and a race.

cross

between two

species is

very rare in nature.

it is,

When

it is

brought about by

the interference of man,

an immense majority of cases, unfertile. Now unions between the most A cross between races is always widely differing types of humanity constantly present the latter character
in
fertile.
it

even sometimes happens that the

fertility

of races thus united,

is in-

creased.

race, as

we have

said,

is

a variety \\hich

is

propagated.

The

action of the conditions of existence in the midst of which an animal tending to produce in a is chief among the causes is developed, These influences of climate, species, varieties, and originate a race.

50
soil,

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and mode of
life,

are very evidently those

to the different races of

mankind.
But
this is

It is true that

same causes bring about the same

emigrate
in

effects

which have given rise we no longer see the on the Europeans who

our times.

because civilised

man knows

so well

how

to defend himself against

the effects of the climate in which he

resides.

This

is

his constant care,

even in the native country of his

race; as an emigrant his precautions are redoubled.

The

inhabitant of

the temperate zone

who

goes to Siberia takes every care to keep himself

warm. In India or Senegal he uses every means to escape the heat, and succeeds to a very great extent. Everywhere he canies with him manners, customs, and practices, that become part of the atmosphere in which he lives, and tend to diminish the effect of the change. NeverMan in spite of theless these precautions are in some degree useless. all is, to some e.xtent, affected by the new climate and new country where he fixes his abode. A European, when he ceases to resist these influences, will soon become so changed as not to be recognisable by The English race, which more than any other his former countrymen. carries with it the means of protection against exterior influences, is affected after the first generation in Australia, where nevertheless it
prospers wonderfully.
as to

In the United States

race.
is

it

has been so transformed

the

be considered almost a new

it is

If

thus in our days,

when man

provided with
resist,

all

means of

defence the most refined civilisation furnishes, what effect must these
influences,

which he can never completely

have had on the primi?

tive families

who

spread themselves in a savage state over the world

In

the conditions of that age of humanity, climatic influences must have had the same effect on

man

as on animals; and changes as great as any differ-

ences separating the races of humanity, have taken place in

of animals

change in has been found to produce facts analogous to those thus brought about in the early days of the human species, and which have given rise to We have a striking example in Ireland, at the end of the its races.

many species when transported to new climates. Moreover, a complete the mode of life of a people, even under the same climate,

war of the seventeenth

ignorance, have,

century.

Entire populations, driven into the wild

returned to a savage state, and

lands of the island and exposed for generations to misery, hunger, and

we may almost

say,

their physical characteristics, completely altered or modified,

have made

them a race perfectly distinct from the people from whom they sprung, and who are to be found in their original condition in the
of

neighbouring counties. 3. Besides, nothing more manifestly proves the unity of the
species, its descent

human

from one stock, and that its varieties have been by climatic influences, than the consideration of the geographical caused distribution of different branches of mankind over the surface of the

DEGENERATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.

ditions

51

globe, and the comparison of their types, with the physical and social con-

by which each

is

surrounded.

" All

traditions concur in placing

the formation of the white race, that

intellectual scale, that

is of the race most elevated in the which possesses in the highest degree beauty, proportion, perfect balance of forces, and of physical organisation, in

the northern part of the ancient world, situated, so to speal:, at equal

distances from
its

two

extremities.

The study

of the migrations of races,

the comparison of languages, and historical testimony, concur in

making
the

the white race radiate from the country situated at the foot of the

Caucasus, comprised between the Mediterranean, the

Red

Sea,

Indian Ocean, the steppes of Central Asia, and the Himalaya mountains. The farther we remove from that cradle of our race, the more the
characteristics of that noble race are altered or effaced.

In Europe

it

best maintains itself

Nevertheless

we

no longer find, even

among among
ex-

European people, that perfect metry, which strikes us so nrach

the Armenians,
Persians,
is

regularity of feature, that noble symin the faces of Eastern people,

or the

women
is less

of Georgia,

or

Circassia.

Among
pression

Europeans there
;

more animation, more

mobility,

more

their beauty, in a word,

physical tlian moral.

" In Africa we meet with alterations of another kind. Already the the Isthmus of Suez, peopling both shores of the Red Sea, and advancing towards the banks of the His brow is Mediterranean, has less intelligent and regular features. more receding and his head more elongated his face has neither the beauty of complexion, the rounded contour of the Persian or Armenian, nor the freshness of the European his skin is yellowish and sometimes brown. Advancing to the soutli towards the Tropic of Cancer, colour Such is takes a still darker tint, the hair becomes crisp, the lips thick. the physiognomy of the Gallas and Abyssinians. "Further south, on the Eastern coast of Africa, the type becomes There we find the Caffre with woolley hair, thicli lips, and uglier still.

Arab inhabiting the neighbourhood of

prominent jaws.

And,

finally, at

the very extremity, at the farthest

point in that part of the world which the

human

race can reach, moral

and physical
degradation.

characteristics

have arrived

at their extremest point of

The Hottentot

presents the ugliest

and
still

least intelligent

type of humanity.

"

On

the opposite coast of Africa, at distances

gi-eater

from the

cradle of the white race, degeneration proceeds even

more

rapidly.

The

Berber races of the Sahara, are certainly descended from a

but amongst them

wliite stock,

we

find the

first

commencement of
is

the change that

has taken place in Soudan.

Tiic head

elongated, the

mouth forms a

salient projection, the limbs are thin and ill-proportioned, and the colour The Fellatah of the Soudan is already a of the skin is darkened.

negro, but a negro

whose

face denotes intelligence.

This remnant of

52

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

among
the blacks of Senegambia,
is

nobility in the features disappears

and

replaced by an increase of ugliness.

The negro

of

Congo
large,

gives

us the pure type of his race

forehead low and receding, lower jaw

hair woolly,

prominent,

lips

thick,

nose

flat,

occiput
to

intel-

ligence limited,

and almost
features

entirely

confined

manual

dexterity.

Lastly, at the extremity of this

Bosjcsman,
Hottentot.

presents

Western coast of Africa, the Bushman or more offensive, if possible, than the

"This
_

gi-adual degeneration of the

human

type which may, so to

speak, be stated in degrees of latitude, from the borders of the Caspian

south-east from the

Cape of Good Hope, is not less decided if we travel east or same original centre. If we penetrate the steppes of Central Asia, we meet with the Mongolians, with prominent cheek
Sea
to the

bones, small sunken eyes obliquely cut,

thickset figures.

triangular faces, square

and

All harmony in the outline has disappeared.

The

Dravidian race were driven by the white man, from the greater part of Hindustan, and took refuge in the mountains of their ancient country.

The Malays,

their

advance guard,

who have

spread from the Peninsula

beyond the Ganges

into the islands, from the

Moluccas

to

Madagascar,

present features even more savage than the Mongolians, and are a

darker coloured race.

is

Among
in Africa

the most barbarous of

them the skin

almost black, and the limbs already show that meagreness, that

shrivelled type,

which

announces nearness to the negro.

The

Alfourou varies from light to dark brown, and his hair grows in enor-

mous

tufts,

as

among

the

Finally,

beyond the Alfourou

most brutalised of the Malay people. race, expelled by them, and spread here
islands

and there
as far as

in the interior of the

from the Andamans to the

Philippines,

the Australians and the Negritos, whose country extends

exhibit the last degree of rudeness, de-

Van Dieman's Land,

formity, stupidity, and degradation.

we advance beyond the Mongoand north-east, we find an alteration of another kind As less extent of ground was open for indeed, but not less marked.
"If, instead of travelling south-east,
lians to the north

the migration of nations, so that our species could not pass so far from the place where it attained its highest degree of development, there has

not been so large a

Ugro-finnish,

field

open

for the process of degeneration.

The

Lapland
race
;

to

whole north of the globe, from country of the Esquimaux, still resemble the Mongolian the
are spread over the

who

but their eyes are generally less oblique, their skin is not so decided a yellow, their hair is more abundant, their forehead lower,
their face denoting less intelligence.

"America,
race,

if

we exclude

the northern part inhabited by the Arctic

comprises another

people,

whose mode of

distribution

is

not

always in complete correspondence with the law

we

are attempting to

THE FOUR GREAT RACES OF MANKIND.

prove.

53

In North America,

man

his features.

The
is

outline of his face

has a peculiarly energetic character in is angular, the forehead extraor no beard, the eyes are slightly

ordinarily receding,

without however being depressed like that of the

red,

negro

the skin

he has

little

projecting, the cheek bones prominent.

This type reaches

its

culmi-

nating point of beauty and intelligence in the tropical regions of Mexico

and Peru.
darkens,
loses
its

Beyond

these countries, as

we descend

southward, the skin

or rather embrowns, the features

curve and regularity, the limbs their

become ugly, the outline handsome shape. Such is

the character of the Guaranas, of the Botocondos, of the Aymaras.

When we arrive at the southern extremity of America, we find only most deformed, most miserable creatures, the brutalised and stupid people of Terra del Fuego. This new and apparently anomalous distribution of the races of the New World, far from being an exception to the law which shows us the human race most perfect where the climatic conditions are most favourable, does in fact only confirm it. America has its temperate regions situated farther south than Europe, because the continent is colder ; the mountain chain, traversing it like a backbone, forms a succession of elevated plateaus. It is in fact in Mexico and Peru, that is, in the countries which, on account of their elevation, possess those conditions most favourable for life, that the indigenous civilisation of America attained to its highest degree of development. " A. Maury. 4. The distribution of mankind in all parts of the world, and in all climates, that we have just sketched, is another of the facts in which the science of anthropology, guided by the analogies shown by most recent observations on the geographical distribution of animals, finds a decisive proof of the unity of our species, in the fact that, however widely it has spread, it must have come from that one single spot where
' '

man
its

first

appeared.
genera,

Animals, like plants, are not distributed hapObservation teaches us that each region has
peculiar types.

hazard over the globe.

species,
its

its

Experience proves that some

is

species
live

may
So

be transported from one region to another, where they will

and prosper.

But there

is

no one species which

naturally cosmo-

politan.

that, as far as

animals and plants are concerned,

give up the idea of one single centre, and accept that of very
centres of creation.

we must many
moment for him

The
these
sition

partisans of the Polygenistic theory are obliged, from the

that they divide

man

into

more than one

species,

to

admit

many
to

centres of creation.

But there again they are

In
fact,

in

oppo-

the laws which science demonstrates to have presided over

the distribution of organised beings.

more extended area than the

species,
;

the genera
for,

present analogous facts of localisation

a do not the less as M. de Candolle has so

thougli they have

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.
" The same causes have
perfect
is

54
well said,

affected both species

and genera."
to

The more
particularly,

the organisation of a vegetable, or of an animal

its

becomes, the more restricted

area.

With regard

mammalia
arrive at

we ^an

trace step

by step the contraction of the area

coincident with the improvement in organisation.

When we
man

the great anthropomorphic apes, which are nearest to

point of view,

in a physical

that nearly every genus is represented by one no one of these genera is common to both Asia and Africa, no one has spread over the whole of that part of the world which it inhabits, and finally, that the habitat of each one is remarkably limited. If then we suppose that the human race can be divided into many species, each of distinct origin, if we admit that this type, the most perfect of all, even in a merely organic point of view, can have arisen in more than one centre of creation, and that it is not characteristic of any
find

we

single species, that

one

in particular,

we

should

make man

the sole exception to the laws

of nature.
sion of

Thus

direct observation

and the science of physiology,

is

whilst they enable us to state, in accordance with the ingenious expres-

M. de

Quatrefages, that

"everything

as if the

whole of man-

kind had commenced with one original and single pair," teach us nothing with regard to the existence of this original and single pair.

Divine revelation alone can instruct us on that subject.

Section
1

II.

The Four great Races

of Mankind.

numerous varieties of the human species whose geographical we have described, divide into four principal races, four great types, which comprise secondary and mixed races, each of them including a certain number, first of families, and then of nations. These
distribution

The

four races are

also but erroneously called Caucasian, by some authors. have already pointed out its original centre, whence it has spread, into India, Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt. The Red, exclusively inhabiting America. The Yellow, which has existed in China, from very remote antiquity, and has spread into all the countries inhabited by Mongolian populations, as well as into the Malacca Peninsula, and the Malay Islands. Lastly, the Black, which belongs to Central and Western Africa, and is distributed over the tropics from the east coast of Africa to Australia. 2. The negroes of the most characteristic type have the skull elonThe upper jaw bone gated and narrow, especially at the temples. projects forward, after the fashion called by naturalists prognathism, and gives rise to the most striking traits of the black face, the slightly projecting nose, broad at the base of the nostrils, and the exaggerated

The White,

We

'

PRIMITIVE TYPE OF MANKIND.

development of
lip.

55
is

l^he hair
is

is

black, short, and woolly, and

in

general very scanty, as

the case also with the various

peculiarities in the

mammalia

of the

Negro country.

With some

form of the body, and a

so than colour, as there

perceptible curve of the legs, these are the essential and distinctive
characteristics of the black race,

much more

are

some

people of white race, such as the

Abyssinians,

to

whom

long residence in equatorial Africa has given an equally dark coloured

skin.

The
cheeks
eyes.

skull of the yellow race

larger than with Europeans.

rise

rounded in form, the oval of the head is The cheek bones are very projecting, the
is

elevated, the eyelids

towards the temples, so that the outer corners of the eyes are seem half closed. The forehead is flat above the
bridge of the nose
flat,

The
is

the chin short, the ears dispro-

portionately large, and projecting from the head.

The

colour of the

skin

generally yellow,

and

in

some branches
is rare,

turns to brown.
is

There

is little

hair on the body, beard

the hair of the head

coarse and,

always black. have already mentioned the principal features which distinguish He is disin skeleton he is very like the white. the red man's face his colour, always reddish brown, or approaching to tinguished by copper, more or less deep in tone, and by the scarcity of hair, for all American races have scanty and short hair, and are beardless. As for our white race, it is, above all, characterised by the beauty of the The eyes are horizontal, with more or less oval which forms the head.
like the eyes, almost

We

widely opened

lids

the nose rather projects than

pierced, the lips thin
its
:

is

large, the
is

mouth
is

small or moderately
rosy white, with
habits, or

the beard

ample, the
skin of a

hair long, smooth, or curled, and

colour variable.

The

more or

less

transparency, according to the climate,

temperament.

Morally and intellectually the M'hite race has

a marked superiority over

find,

all others. In the nations of this race, we from remote antiquity, the greatest development of civilisation and

the most progressive tendencies.

3.

It

would be most

interesting

if

we

could determine,
to

among

these

four types of humanity,

and, in the most ancient times

which history

and the monuments of civilisation go back, they are found as distinct as which is the most ancient, and whether either of they are to-day them can claim to represent, with any certainty, the primitive man.
;

a question science is unable positively to answer. There are no certain elements for determining the primitive type of It appears veiy probable that this type no longer exists our species. The in the world, and that no actual race entirely resembles it.
Unfortunately
tliis is

conditions of climate under which

man

first

appeared on the earth, have

left

now

entirely changed, for they belonged to another geological period.

is it

How

possible that these great changes can have

unchanged the

56

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

?

primitive type of humanity

Some

anthropologists have wished to

seek the type of primitive

man

in the lowest ranks of the

;

human

species,

among
is

the Hottentots or the Aborigines of Australia

but such an opinion

not scientifically admissible

racteristics,

these tribes show, in their physical cha; such a state of degradation as to prove that they were once
condition, from
it is

in a

more elevated
hand,

which they have gradually declined.

is

On the other

almost impossible not to admit that the advance

in

of the wliite race towards perfection

a great measure due to the

it

exceptionally favourable conditions of climate in which

well as to the long continued influence of civilisation,
occasionally
it

has lived, as
see, as

when we

we do

see,

how much
state,

this

race degenerates,

how

near

approaches to a savage
all

when

these favouring circumstances are

removed.

We see among phenomena which

This
is

numerous varieties, have designated by the name " Atavism." the sporadic appearance m all varieties of individuals who
species of animals, presenting
naturalists

reproduce the type, not of their direct ancestors, but of the original species, before the fomiation of varieties. Certain facts occurring from
time to time among the different races of humanity, seem entitled to be considered as instances of Atavism. Tlie most able Anthropologists, such as M. de Quatrefages, and Dr. Pruner Bey, consider that they throw light on the primitive ancestry of our species. Two points at any rate seem to be proved that the faces of the first men were to some extent prognathic, and their colour was not black. The
;

anatomical
all

trait

of prognathism, especially of the upper jaw, exists in

the families of the black race,

and

is

not less apparent

among
is

part of

the yellow race.

decided tendency in that direction

It frequently

seen in the

Ugro-finnish races.

purest branches of the white race.

appears in isolated individuals of the Those remains of human heads

been recovered from caverns of the close of the " Eveiy thing seems to quatemai-y period, are decidedly prognatliic.
at present,

which have,

indicate," says
existed in the
positive

M. de

Quatrefages, "that this characteristic must have

We are enabled to be more on the next point, that the fii-st ancestors of our species were not black the darkened colour of the skin, the excessive development of the black matter or pigmc7it which forms under the epidermis, is unquestionably an effect of a burning climate and of the sun's power, produced only in tropical regions which were certainly not the primitive cradle of humanity. Moreover, we often see individuals, white or yellow, appear from the result of "Atavism" among negro nations; while no negro was ever bom from white or yellow people. M. de Quatrefages is also of opinion that we might go still farther, and conjecture, from some other facts of the same nature, that the original type of humanity approached that of the yellow races, whose languages also
first

ancestors of mankind."

THE FAMILY OF HAM.

are
still

57

But we do not venture and prefer to confine ourselves to follow him on ground still so insecure ; one probable, the other certain which we have just to the two points
preserved in the most primitive state.

explained.

Section

IK. The Descendants

Book
Phaleg, vol.
i.

of Noah, according to the

of his complete works, Leyden,
Genesis, Giessen, 185
1.

of Genesis.

A ul/iori^/es .-Bochart,
1

7 12.

Ch. Lenormant, Introduction a P Histoire de VAsie Occidcntalc,

1838. Knobel, Die Vulkcrtafd der
as

Paris,
1.

already said, had three sons, Shem, Ham, and chapter of the book of Genesis, Moses gives us a In the loth Japhet. table of the nations known in his time, as affiliated to these three great chiefs of the new race of postdiluvian humanity. This is the most ancient,

Noah,

we have

the most precious, the most complete document which the distribution of the ancient nations of the world.

we

possess

on

We may

even

consider

it

as anterior to Moses, for

it

represents nations in positions

to

which the Egyptian monuments show us

several

have been much changed in

Moreover, important points, before the time of the Exodus. the enumeration is made there in regidar geographical order, from Babylon and Chaktea as a centre, not from Egypt or Palestine. It

seems therefore probable that this table of nations and their origin was part of the tradition brought by the family of Abraham from Chaldsea,

and
that

that

it

represents the distribution of nations

known

to the civilised

world at the time when

the Patriarch

left

the banks of the Euphrates,

is about 2,000 years before the Christian Era. This document furnishes an inestimably valuable basis for the researches
is

of ethnogi-aphy, that

the science which investigates the relationships

historical tradition, the

The attentive study of of nations vvdth each other, and their origin. comparison of languages, and the examination
in

of the physiological characteristics of different nations, lead to results are about to complete accordance with the inspired volume.

We

explain, as briefly as possible, the facts resulting from the ethnographic teachings of the book of Genesis, and those which modem science

has supplied, to complete or supplement them. Ham, whose name signifies the "Sun-burned," 2. Family of HanL. father of the great family from whom the people of Phoenicia, was the

of Egypt, and Ethiopia, were primarily descended.

These nations are

now represented by the Fellalis of Eg)'pt, the Nubians, the Abyssinians, and the Tuaricks, and possess all the characteristics of the white race,
but are distinguished by their dark colour, passing from light brown to bronze, and almost into black ; by their short stature, receding cliiu.

S'8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

though not prominent
hair.
lips,

thick,

scanty beard, and very curly though

never quite woolly

entirely

The

classifications of anthropology,

founded
does the

on physical
to the

characteristics,

place them exactly

as

sacred text.

According

book of Genesis,

Ham

had four

sons, Cush, Miz-

The identity of the race of Cush with the Ethiopians is certain. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt always designate the people of the Upper Nile, south of Nubia, by the name of Cush. In Scripture, Mizraim is the name constantly applied to Eg\'pt, and in our own times the Arabs still use the name Mizr, both for the capital of Egypt and for the country itself. The identity of the descendants of Phut with the people who inhabited the northern
raim, Phut, and Canaan.
coasts of Africa, has not been established in quite so certain a manner.
critics are however of opinion that this name, in most extended signification, applies to the primitive Libyans, amongst whom some Japhetic tribes subsequently settled. Under the name of Canaan are comprised the Phoenicians and all the tribes in their vicinity, who, before the establishment of the Hebrews, inhabited the country called Canaan, from Sidon and Gaza to Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, the territory lying between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, which in later times was called the " Holy Land." It seems certain that the Hamitic race inhabited at first a great part of Western and .Southern Asia, before the arrival of the children of Shem, who drove them out from thence. Nimrod, a descendant of Cush, reigned in Babylon, built Erech and Calneh, in the land of Shinar, and established there the first of all empires. The Hamites were the first inliabitants of the country bordered by the Oxus, extending towards the upper course of the Indus, whence is derived the name Hindoo Koosh, always given to the mountain chain of this region. All scholars are now agreed that the banks of the Tigris, Southern Persia, and part of India itself (where the tribes of this race were called Kausikas) were peopled by the Cushite family, before being occupied by the descendants of Shem, and by the Arians of the race of Japhet.
its

The most competent

There are
lastly,

also

good reasons

for believing that the Carians, the original

inhabitants of great part of Asia Minor, were of the race of

Ham. And

the same race exercised in early times an uncontested sovereignty

over

on the coasts of Carmania and Gedrosia, along the Indian Ocean, and all the south of the Arabian Peninsula.

We

see that, of the three great races

who

separated after the con-

fusion of tongues, the

Hamites were the first to leave the common human race, and that they spread themselves over a vast centre of the Amongst extent of territory, and founded the earliest monarchies. them material civilisation made at first the most rapid progress. But Noah had laid a curse on his son Ham for having been wanting in

THE RACE OF SHEM.

filial

59

respect,

and

for

drunkenness.

"A

having exposed him to derision during a fit of servant of servants shall he be to his brethren " had

been the sentence, and the curse has been fulfilled in all its completeThe Empires founded by the Hamites soon came in contact ness. with the two other races, who, in the contest which ensued, were and dispossessed the original inhabitants of the counvictorious, The Semites replaced them in Chaldsea, tries they had occupied. the Arian race in India and Persia. Assyria, Palestine, and Arabia cursed son maintained their power only in The descendants of the Africa, particulady in Egypt, where the most flourishing of their The descendants of Ham were the first after the colonies spnmg up. deluge to make progress in material civilisation, which they carried to a
;

high degree of development.

But beneath

it

all their

nature was un-

changed

their race

always retained the trace of the grossness and

The depravity which had drawn down on Ham his father's curse. Hamitic people were always deeply cornipt. Their religion never advanced beyond the most absolute materialism, shamelessly expressed by most revolting myths, and by symbols of inconceivable obscenity. Thus it was that the triumph of the races of Shem and Japhet always resulted in the substitution of a higher and purer civilisation for that of the Hamites, the introduction of greater moral purity, and of a
religion

even when tainted with the errors of idolatiy. 3. Race of She?n.T\\e descendants of Shem were the next to disperse them^selves over the world, leaving the country where man had They occupied the countries exoriginally dwelt after the deluge. tending from Upper Mesopotamia to the southern extremities of Arabia,

more

spiritual,

and from the borders of the Mediterranean Sea to the country beyond The first-bom of Shem, according to the book of Genesis, the Tigris. was Elam, representing the Elamites of Susiana. The first settlement of a mixed Hamitic and Turanian population in that country was in but these last were not fact replaced by inhabitants of Semitic race able to maintain themselves there, and at a later period were conquered by the Arians, descendants of Japhet. Susiana, between Persia properly so called and the Tigris, always had these elements in its popuAsshur, lation, which seems to have been an essentially mixed race. second son of Shem, was the founder of that powerful nation who, the
;

under the name of Assyrians, played so great a part in the history "Asshur," says the Bible, "builded Nineveh and of Western Asia. Calah and Resen." At Babylon and throughout Chaklasa the language, the as we know now by the monuments, was the same as at Nineveh
;

preponderating influence also was that of the race of Asshur, but the mass of the population seems to have remained Hamitic, of the Cushite
branch, which had fonned the primitive empire of Nimrod,
containing a mixture of other elements.
itself

also

6o

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The book of Genesis next mentions Arphaxad, whose name means "border of the Chaldoeans," or rather "neighbourhood of the Chaldaeans." This name, like the greater number of those given to the grandsons of Noah, is rather the geographical designation of the country where he founded a settlement, than the proper name of the which were inhabited in individual. It determines the localities the first age after the deluge, by those nearly related families, who, in In later times, became the parent stock of the Hebrews and Arabs. fact, among the descendants of Arphaxad we find Eber, the direct ancestor of Abraham and the Hebrew nation, and also Joktan, who was the progenitor of the most ancient Arab tribes, of those with whom in later times the children of Ishmael amalgamated, and over whom they obtained supremacy. Moreover, we shall see presently that at the moment of his call Abraham was still living in the midst of the Chaldceans. Lud was the fourth son of Shem. He personifies the ancient inhabitants of Lydia. According to all appearances this people originally dwelt in the neighbourhood of Assyria and Mesopotamia, whence in later times they migrated to the western extremity of Asia Minor. The most recent investigations of the little we know of the Lydian language, and of their traditions, goes far to
prove their Semitic blood.

The

last

of the children of this Patriarch,

according to the Bible enumeration, was Aram.

the Syrian race, which occupied
all

He was

the parent of

the country between the Mediteralso

ranean and the Euphrates.

part of Mesopotamia.

There were
1st.

Aramreans

in the

western
country
of the

The Hebrews
;

therefore divided

the

of

Aram

into several regions

is,

Aram Naharaim,

or "

Aiam

two

rivers," that

the

"Mesopotamia"
;

of the Greeks, between the

Euphrates and the Tigris

Syria,

2nd.

Aram

properly so

called,
;

that

is,

whose most ancient and important city was Damascus and 3rd. Aram Zobah, or the region in which in later times was formed the kingdom of Palmyra. The group of Semitic nations, whose chief representatives in our days are the Arabs and the Jews, present a purer and handsomer type of the white race than any of the Hamitic nations ; the beard is
fuller,

the complexion clearer though

still

dark,

the stature loftier,

The face is generally long and thin, with a spare habit of body. the forehead rather low, the nose aquiline, the mouth and chin receding,
so as to give a rounded rather than a straight profile, the eyes sunken,

black and bright.

Race of\ Japhet. The name of this youngest born of the sons of Noah, signifies " extension," because that his posterity was to occupy an immense extent of country. His family remained longest united, and was the last to leave the neighbourhood of the place where Noah had The book of Genesis gives the fixed his residence after the deluge.
4.

THE RACE OF JAPHET.

names of his seven sons
Tiras,
as

6i
]V[eshecli,

Gomer, Magog, Madai, Tubal,

and Javan. Gomer on the northern coast of the Euxine, and north of Greece. From these were in due course of time to spring a people well known to the Greek and Roman historians, as Cimmerians, Cimbri, or Kymry, who were for ages the terror of Asia and Europe, and who even made Rome Three sons of Gomer are tremble at the summit of her power. mentioned: Ashkenaz, whose name seems composed of the Gothic roots As chunis, "the race of Ases," and which represents the Germanic and Scandinavian nations not yet separated, and inhabiting a limited district to the north-cast of the Black Sea ; Riphath, that is, the group of Celts or Gauls, then established in their first European settlement on the Riphaean mountains the present Carpathians, before entering on their last migration towards the France of our days ; and lastly,
personifies the families originally established

Togarmah, in whom tradition has always recognised the Ai'inenians. That Madai is synonymous with the Medes is certain. He represents the great Iranian family which holds so important a place among the The identity of Tubal and the TibaJaphetic and Arian populations.
is equally well established; these people as late as the classical ages inhabited the momitains bordering on Colchis; from them are descended the isolated races who still live in the valleys of the Caucasus. Meshech

reni

seems to con-espond with the Moschi of Herodotus, who occupied the To the territory between the country of the Tibareni and Phrygia. seem to belong the neighbouring nations of the north same race would of Asia Mmor, Paphlagonians, and Meriandynians, inhabitants of The Greek Tiras can only be the ancestor of the Thracians. Pontus. Thracians came originally from historians also have informed us that the
Asia Mmor, and that having
to the north of Macedonia.
left

Bithpiia at some

unknown epoch,

they came across the Hellespont to seek a settlement in the countries

Javan, or loun, was the father of the lonians and Greeks ; leaving the southern parts of Asia Minor, the sons of Javan spread themselves From these primitive over the coasts and islands of the /Egaan Sea.
lonians came Elishah, Tarshish,
Hellas, that
Epirotes,
is,

Kittim, and Dodanim.

centre

Elishah
at

is

Greece.

Dodanim

personifies the Pelasgic race of the

religious

whose

most important

was

Dodona.

Kittim represents the inhabitants of the islands of the Archipelago, and Cypms, where this people had founded the town of Citium. Finally,
Tarshish ought probably to be the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, a branch of whom were established in Greece, and who formed the primitive population of a great part of Italy.

Moses in enumerating the sons of Japhet, naturally only mentioned those whose descendants were likely to be known to the Hebrews of his time. But the science of our days, guided by physiological and

62

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

is

linguistic affinities,

enabled to complete the testimony of the book of

still

Genesis on this point, and to assign a

the Japhetic stock.
It is universally

larger

number of nations

to

agreed to recognise as descendants

and Romans, the Germans, the Celts, Scandinavians, and Slavonians in Asia, the Persians, the Medes, the Bactrians, and the higher castes of India. These last nations, known by the collective name ol "Arians," remained for a long time concentrated in the countries watered by the Oxus and Jaxartes, tliat is in Bactria and Sogdiana, the region which was the original dwelling of Thence one branch directed its course to the south, the whole race. crossed the Hindoo Koosh, and penetrated into India, destroying or subjugating the earlier Hamitic population. The other established itself in the country which lies between the Caspian Sea and the Tigris, and in the mountains of Media and Persia. We see that in very ancient times they mixed with the Assyrians, and that they even ruled
of Japhet in Europe, the Greeks
;

over them for several centuries.

The

race of Japhet
its

is

then that which

is

also designated, to indicate

race.
all

the extent of

domain, the Indo-European

It
is

{Yo

this

race

we

ourselves belong.

a race noble beyond

others, the race to

to a degi-ee of

which Providence has assigned the mission of carrying

perfection,

unknown

to other races, arts, sciences, philosophy.

said

Noah, according
in the tents of

to the Bible,

"

shall enlarge Japhet, shall

dwell

Shem, and Canaan

be his

" God," and he shall servant." That

it

blessing and prophecy are accomplished, for the race of Japhet has not

only become the most numerous and the most widely spread, but
also the

is

dominant race of the world which day by day advances toward

universal sovereignty.
5. There is one of the sons of Japhet of whom we have not yet spoken, for the subject requires rather more detailed explanation. He

represents a group of nations

very peculiar physiognomy

Scripture
is

-we speak of

more extensive than the others, and of Magog. This name in sacred

almost always associated with Gog.

The very

frequent

and ravages of the sons of Gog and Magog, induce us to recognise them as the nomadic tribes of the north-east, near the Caspian Sea. Their name has been compared to that of the MassagetEe. The historian Josephus, the recorder of the traditions of the Jewish 'nation, calls them Scythians. Everything seems then to prove that the inspired writer of the book of Genesis, under the name of Magog, intended to represent the numerous tribes composing the secondary race now designated by science, " Turanian." This race, one of the largest, both numerically, and with regard to the extent of territory which it occupies, is divided into two gi^eat branches, the Ugro-finnish and the Dravidian. The first must be
allusions in the
to the incursions

Hebrew prophets

again

subdivided into

the

Turkish,

including

the

populations

of

YELLOW, BLACK, AND RED RACES OF MEN.

63

Turkestan, and of the Steppes of Central Asia, as well as the Hungarians, who have been for a long time settled in Europe ; and the
Uralo-finnish group, comprising the Finns, the Esthonians, the Tchoudes, and in general, nearly all the tribes of the north of Europe and Asia.

The

country of the Dravidian branch

is

is,

on the contrary, to the south.

composed of the indigenous people of the Peninsula of Hindustan, Tamuls, Telingas, Carnates, who were subjugated by the Arian race, and who appear to have originally driven before them the negroes of the Australian group, the original inhabitants of the soil, who are now represented by the almost savage tribe of the Khonds. The Turanian race is one of the oldest in the world, and appears to have migrated at the same time as the Hamitic ; it might even
This branch
in fact

be possible to restore the chief features of an epoch, when the sons of Turan and of Cush alone occupied the gi-eater part of Europe and Asia, whilst the Semites and the Arians had not yet left the regions which were the cradle of our species. The skulls discovered in France, England and Belgium, in caves of the close of the quaternary epoch, appear, from their characteristics, to belong to a Turanian race, to the
Uralo-finnish gi'oup, and particularly resemble those of the Esthonians.

Wherever the Japhetic or pure Indo-European race extended, it seems to have encountered a Turanian population which it conquered and This was the course of events in finally amalgamated with itself. Western Europe, where the Basques, the descendants of the ancient
Iberians, are possibly the last remains of this original population
;

in

Hindustan

in

the

interior of Persia,

and

in

Carmania,

where the

southern coast was occupied by Cushites.

In Media and Susiana the element struggled more successfully and managed to maintain Turanian shall see as itself almost on a footing of equality with the Arian.

We

we proceed

that

it

lation of Chaldcea

composed and Babylonia, and that

a considerable portion of the original popuit

appears to have furnished

the dominant and especially the sacerdotal class.

Both ethnography and

linguistic science attest the

its e.\tent,

fundamental unity

of the Turanian race, which, in spite of

presents itself to us as a

mixed

race, intermediate

between the white and yellow, passing gradually

from one to the other. At each extremity of the scale, we find types which The Uzbecs, coincide almost completely with those of the other races. the Osmanli Turks, and the Hungarians, are not to be distinguished in appearance from the most perfect branches of the white race. On the other hand the Tchoudes almost exactly resemble the Tongouses, who
belong to the yellow race.

The

intermediary physiognomy of the

Either they spring from a
if

Turanians

may

arise

from two causes.

or,

mixture of white and yellow elements,

Quatrefages, as to

the conjecture of

M. de

the original characteristics of

some of the

features

'

64

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

human

peculiar to the yellow race be correct, the Turanian race results from a

stoppage of development during the progress from the primitive

In any type to the complete perfection of the civilised white man. case, the presence of this race among the descendants of Japhet, in the
loth chapter of Genesis, is justified by its close approach, at any rate on one side, to the white race, particularly to the Japhetic family, as has been proved by scholars who have so successfully employed themselves in fixing the place of the Turanian languages in comparative philology, M. Pott in Germany, M. Max Muller in England, and M. Oppert in All appearances would lead us to regard the Turanian race as France. the first branch of the family of Japhet, which went forth into the world, and by that premature separation, by an isolated and antagonistic existence, took, or rather preserved, a completely distinct physiognomy. We are especially led to consider the Turanian as a type of the white race, imperfectly developed, rather than the result of a cross between the two races, by the marked disposition to prognathism existing

in all its branches

and which, as we have already

said,

appears to be a

very primitive peculiarity, gradually effaced by favourable conditions of

life,

and by

civilisation.

6.

The

descendants of Shem,

logued by Moses, include then, as

of humanity, the white race,

and Japhet, so admirably cataseen, one only of the races whose three chief divisions he gives us as

Ham

we have

now

recognised by anthropologists.

The

other three races, yellow,

list

black and red, have no place in the Bible

of the nations sprung

from Noah.

We
The men

need not be surprised

inspired author of the

at this, in the case of the first

book of Genesis could only they knew. Now, in the days of Moses, no one in Egypt, or among the Israelites, had any idea of the existence of the Chinese, or of the red American race. The negroes, ho-\\'ever, were perfectly well known. Moses especially, educated in Egypt, must have seen very many of them, for the Pharaohs of his day made wars on them, and led thousands away captive into the Egyptian cities. It was not then from ignorance or omission that he did not mention them in his enumeration of the descendants of the three sons of Noah it was voluntarily, and doubtless wdth some express intention, though we may not be able to explain it. Those who suppose that the inspired author believed that the deluge was not universal as to all the then formed branches of the human species, that there were tribes, besides the family of Noah, who escaped the flood, find in this The text of the Bible, howfact one of their most specious arginrients. ever, has nothing expressly opposed to the supposition that Noah might have had, after the deluge, other sons besides Shem, Ham and Japhet, from whom might have sprung the races which do not appear in the
and
third.

speak to the

of his time of nations

whom

genealogy of these three personages.

It

does not, as

we have

already


FORMATION OF LANGUAGES.
said, in

65

any way oppose the hypothesis that some families sprung from may have left the common centre of humanity before the building of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion
the three Noachian patriarchs

of tongues, and may have given birth to those great races who, becoming developed in absolute isolation, have assumed a perfectly distinct physiognomy and have remained shut out from the history of the rest of mankind. In the table of affihation in the loth chapter of Genesis, Moses has professed only to include those nations who after having
lived together, speaking the

were And these were the dispersed in consequence of the disaster of Babel. nations who composed the white race, the superior and dominant race, to whom, over all others, pre-eminence must be conceded and the glory

same language,

in the land of Shinar,

of representing humanity in

its

noblest aspect.

Section IV.
I.

The Principal
book of

Families of Languages.
discuss that
It

We
and

cannot, in a

this kind,

most

difficult

philosophical problem
plan,
is

the origin of language.

it

forms no part of our

not practically useful for historical purposes.

Whatever

opinion

we may

hold on this subject,

it

is

certain that the gradual

development of language, rendering

of thought, and
its

for every

age the perfect expression

adaptability to the manners and state of civilisation

human results produced by those especial and sublime faculties with which the Creator has endowed our species. To study and compare the infinitely varied languages which are spoken by mankind, to discover their general laws, to group them in families, to seek out their relationships and affinities, are the objects of compaof each people, are purely
rative philology, as yet quite a
j^lace

new

science, but

one holding a foremost

among

the acquirements of our age in the

its

domain of

learning.

It

takes for the object of

investigations, languages as they

now

exist,

and does not attempt

positive fact.

to trace

back

their origin

beyond the region of

The questions of primary origin, by revelation, by voluntary agreement among mankind, or by the necessary and spontaneous effect of their organisation, so much debated among philosophers, do not belong
to this science
;

if at
its

any time

it

does approach this problem,

it is

merely

as a corollai-y to

observations.

We

have
it

not, unfortunately, space to

give to this subject aU

the development

deserves.

We

cannot even

attempt a complete sketch, however rapid, but can only indicate the must confine ourselves to enumerating in chief points of interest.

We

few words the principal families of the idioms spoken on the earth, and afterwards adding some details as to the most perfect languages, those most advanced in their development, those also which have had most effect on civilisation for in no others is there any literature worthy of

66
tlie

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

name

that

is

tlie

inflected languages of the Semitic,

and of the

Japhetic, or Indo-European nations.

2,
exist,

Ever since man began

to speak, that

is,

ever since he began to

the languages of various races have passed through innumerable

by the progress of knowledge among those by whom they were spoken, by intercommunication, and by the reciprocal It is therefore as impossible to trace influence of one idiom on another. back to a primitive language, as we have found it impossible to trace back to a primitive race. Too many changes have been in operation The utmost we can do is to since man left the birth-place of his race. recover from some ancient languages a few traces of the original idiom, in other words, to find a certain number of the processes by which the
modifications, caused
eaidiest

men made known

their thoughts.

"The
in

earliest

feature in

these primitive languages,"

agreement with all philologers, "was doubtless the predominance of outward impression in the fomiation of signs, and the pre-eminently concrete form in which thought was embodied. Just as the human mind clothes its first perceptions, not in the abstract and general form that can only be
says

M. Maury,

obtained by elimination and analysis, but in the particular form, in one sense more synthetic, including and confounding mere accessories with absolute truth
;

so primitive language almost entirely ignored

metaphysical abstraction.
in all other results of

No

doubt, pure reason

faculties.

is

reflected in this, as

human

The most humble

exercise of

intelligence implies

most elevated notions. Speech, even its most simple state, pre-supposes absolute and eminently pure models, but all was expressed in a concrete and tangible form." In designating objects, imitation, or "onomatopoeia," seems to have been the ordinary method employed. The human voice, being at once both sign and sound, it was natural to take the sounds of the voice to Moreover, as the choice of appellations designate the sounds of nature. was not arbitrary, and as man has never chosen sounds at haphazard as signs of his thoughts, we may be sure that of all words actually in use there
is

not one for which there

is

not a sufficient reason, either as a primitive

fact, or as

a remnant of a more ancient language.

Now,

the primitive

fact that

must have determined the choice of words is, without doubt, the attempt to imitate the object wished to be expi-essed, especially if we consider the perceptive instincts that must have governed the first
steps of the

human mind.
first

The comparative
men.

study of various languages

also give a certain idea

and the traces of their elementary forms,

of the language of the
philologist,

may

This study has enabled a celebrated

Jacob Grimm,*

to trace the following sketch of

what primi-

Memoire sur Porigine

dii

langage in the Mcmoircs dc

V academic

de Berliit, 1852.

TURANIAN LANGUAGES.
tive

67

" Language on its first appearance was simple, without artificial processes, full of life and the energy of youth. All the words were short, monosyllabic, generally formed of short vowels and simple consonants. Words were joined and agglomerated in speech, like blades of grass in turf All its conceptions resiUted from perception, from clear intuition, forming one thought, and becoming in
language must have been.
its

turn the starting point for a host of other equally simple ideas.

The

connections between the words and the ideas were simple, but were

At each spoken language assumed more fulness and flexibility, but was still wanting in rhythm and harmony. Thought had not as yet become fixed, and therefore primitive speech could leave no monument of its existence." The languages that emerged from this primitive idiom underwent modifications in accordance with fixed laws, in the same way as all other natural phenomena. Comparative philology has been enabled to discover the most essential of these laws, and tlie varying effects in the different languages, tlie development of which they have governed. " Three distinct epochs maik the history of language the monosyllabic, the agglutinative, and the inflected. Not that all languages have necessarily passed through these three phases, but because the idioms belonging to the last epoch, that of inflexion, bear the marks of a more developed organisation than those of the intermediate epoch
frequently disfigured by the addition of unnecessary words.

progressive step,

corresponding to that of agglutination

all

these latter languages being

themselves better organised than the monosyllabic tongues.

languages,
ancient and modern,

Among

phases, others have been arrested

some have passed through the three in their development. Thus aggluand
inflection includes

tination includes the monosyllabic state,

both

the agglutinative and the monosyllabic states. Exactly as

among species

of animals, some remain as elementary organisms, whilst othere progress

during the period of gestation from that organism, to a higher and more developed organisation." A. AL\ury.

3.

JNIonosyllabic languages consist only of simple words, expressed

by one single emission of the voice. These words are both substantives and verbs ; they express the notion, the idea, independently of the employment, namely, the way in which the word is put into relation
with other words, indicating
its

categorical sense in the phrase.

The

majority of the languages of the yellow race have stopped at

this stage of

development.

and purest example.

state,

The ancient Chinese The modern Chinese is also

but tendencies to agglutination begin to

perhaps the best monosyllabic appear. This is also the

is

in the

case in Annamese, .Siamese, Burmese, and in general in

all

the Indo-

Chinese idioms

in the Thibetan, as well as in the languages of

some

primitive tribes of the north of India,

who have been

driven by Arian

conquest into the valleys of the Himalayas.

68

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

the dialects

From

we have

just

named we

pass,

by an almost

in-

sensible transition, to the agglutinated languages.

These, in the Old

World for we

leave out the indigenous languages of America, and their

peculiar process of agglutination

constitute

a vast group, embracing

the idioms spoken

by

all

the Turanian nations, which have received

from Professor Max MUller and Mr. Logan the name of " Turanian The fundamental character of this gi'oup, group of languages." and of the state of language it represents, is the use of monosyllabic
particles, indicating all the modifications of language, all the ideas of

between the different words in a phrase. These par" post positions " are " glued " to the root, which remains invariable, defining its meaning, lengthening it out almost indefinitely, without any fusion or contraction, either with each other, or with the root or primitive word. The Turanian or agglutinated languages of the Old "World are generally very harmonious in their vocalisation, and exhibit a marked tendency to avoid the junction of many consonants, always teiTninating the fundamental word or root with a vowel. The grammatical laws, the characteristic method of formation, are the same for all, and clearly prove the essential unity of this group. But the vocabularies vary almost infinitely between one and the other, a circumstance, moreover, to be obsei-ved in all the languages of uncivilised people who, from their mode of life, are completely isolated from one another, even when near neighbours. The Turanian languages may be divided into families, corresponding
relation possible
ticles or

exactly to the divisions of the Turanian nations.

are the Tartaro-finnish and Dravidian.

The two principal The first is composed of three branches, each subdivided into a great number of small gi-oups and idioms first, the Turkish, which, as its name indicates, is
;

formed of the languages of all the tribes of Turkestan, and of those who, like the Osmanlis, have descended from them. Next the Uralofinnish branch, represented in Europe by the Finlandish, the Magyar, the Esthonian, and the Lapponese in Asia, by the dialects spoken in the regions of the Oural and Altai, such as the Ostiak and the Samoiede.
;

by the northern people of the yellow race, Mongols and Tongouses. We might add a fourth branch, formed by the Japanese and Corean, which have also sprung from the same source. The Dravidian family is composed of the languages of the southern part of Hindustan, the principal being the Tamil, the Telinga, and the Canarese.

Finally, the Tartar branch, properly so called, spoken

The Tartaro-finnish presents a state of language slightly more advanced than that of the Dravidian family. The roots are generally of two
syllables, accented

on the

first

but in this dissyllable

we
still

find the
exists

unmisin

takable trace of the primitive monosyllable that

roots of the

the

Dravidian family.

These

last

languages are more harmo-


TURANIAN LANGUAGES.
nious, and,

69

compared with them, tlie Tartaro-finnish tongues are hard and roughened, so to speak, by the cold of the countries where they The Finnish only is an exception ; are spoken, alDOve all the Magyar. it equals in softness and harmony the most musical of the languages of
Hindustan.
4.

Inflected languages are peculiar to the white race,

and are those

:

which have attained to the highest degree of development. They result from the most complete progress of thought and civilisation " In these languages the root undergoes a phonetic alteration,
destined to express the modifications resulting from the differences of the
relations
still

binding the root to the other words.

The

elements, which

possess a character so rigid and immutable in the agglutinated lan-

guages,

become

in

the inflected

more

simple,

more

organic.

An

inflected language represents the liighest degi-ee of gi-ammatical structure,

and is best adapted to the expression and development of ideas. Nothing can better show the difference that separates the agglutinated from the inflected languages than the contrast between the respective In declensions and conjugations of these two classes of idioms. declension the agglutinated languages have but the slightest separation between the case and its post position; number is simply expressed by a and there is as yet no blending of these words with the tergiination The genders are hardly distinguished. But in principal word or root.
;

the

inflected

languages,

all

the circumstances of

tlie

word, gender,

number, and case, are expressed by modifications affecting the substantive In the verb itself, and constantly changing its sound, form, and accent. We no longer the transformation of the root is still more complete. find, as in the agglutinated languages, a central syllable to which others are * glued ;' but the whole body of the word is modified in accordance with the several moods and tenses, preserving, however, some of the sound of the root, serving to recall the original sense modified by its
relations with other words. "

A.

Maury.
M. Schleimethod of the languages from the
languages, the persons
are

"The mode
agglutinated

of indicating persons and numbers,"* writes

cher, "differs entirely in the inflected

idioms.

Among

these last

and the plural is often cannot be otherwise, since the difference between the substantive and the pronoun had only In the inflected languages, the personal terminations just commenced. of the verb have no doubt a visible connection with the pronoun, but the forms of the inflected verljs are fundamentally distinguished from all
indicated by a pronominal
suffix, slightly altered,

marked by the

plural sign of the substantive.

It

others.

In

this

thing which we

call

case an energetic force has formed that indissoluble ' a word, and in this we cannot mistake the respec'

Les langues dc r Europe modcrne, French translation,

p.

153.

70

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and verb.
Just because the unity of
is

tive character of the substantive

the word

so rigorously maintained during inflection

we cannot

express

many

relations

by one

single word.

Whilst the changes, the almost

immeasurable elongations, which verbs and substantives undergo in the agglutinated tongues, can only take place at the expense of the unity of the word. The inflected verb then marks fewer relations than the agglutinated verb. Thence also arises the great difficulty of decomposing the inflected forms into their simple elements. The elements expressing relation undergo very considerable changes in inflected idioms, simply to preserve the unity of the word."

The

inflected languages

are

divided into two great families,

the

Semitic,

and the Indo-European or Arian.

To

these two families

belong the languages of the great ancient civilisations v/hose history we have undertaken to relate. They are so important, that we must devote
to each a special paragraph.

Section V.
I.

The

Se.mitic

Languages.
num-

The

principal languages of the Semitic family are eight in

ber

1st.

The Hebrew, spoken by

the Israelites, by the Phoenicians, and

of this there were
in the sixth century

probably also by other tribes of Canaan.

2nd.

many

dialects.

The Aramcean, formerly used in Syria The Biblical Aramjean, in which,

;

before our era,

instance, part of the

some of the books of the Bible were composed, as for book of Daniel. The Aramaean of the Targum,
or paraphrases of the Bible, dating from the

found in the

"Targums"

commencement of our era. The Syro-Chaldee, the vulgar tongue formed among the Jews by alterations in the Hebrew, spoken in Palestine in the time of Christ, and used in the great Rabbinical work called The Nabathean, the dialect of the ancient inhabitants of the Talmud.
Arabia Petrsea
;

and

finally,

the Samaritan, a dialect formed in the old

after the Assyrian conquest,

territory of the tribe of

Ephraim,

which

is

preserved literally

among
still

the descendants of these dissenters from the

Jewish worship.
3rd.

The

Sabaean,

used in the southern part of the basin of the

Euphrates,

among

the Mendaites, a peculiar sect, a remnant of the

ancient Assyro-persic paganism.

4th. The Syriac, the language used in \vriting in the countries of Edessa and Nisibis, the development and literaiy existence of which extended from the second to the sixth century of the Christian era. 5th. The Assyrian, a language common to Babylon and Nineveh, in which the cuneifonn inscriptions of those two fl\mous cities are com-

posed.

SEMITIC LANGUAGES.
6tli.

71
;

The

Ilimyarite, or ancient idiom of Southern Arabia

oT this

we
and

]X)ssess

nothing but a few inscriptions.

the ancient language of Abyssinia. the third century of our era.
tl^e

7th.

The Ghez,

Its

development

literary existence are

subsequent to the establishment of Christianity

only one of the Semitic tongues

m that countiy,
8th.

tliat is, to

Finally, the Arabic,

It

still

a living language.
differing

has but a small number of dialects, slightly

from each other.

Through

the influence of the Koran, this

idiom,

originally peculiar to the Ishmaelite tribe,

has spread from

Babylonia to the extremity of Morocco, from Syria to Yemen. 2. These languages form a perfectly homogeneous group, and are not
divided into so
are
all

many

branches as

otlier hnguistic

families.
is

The

roots

found only, with great difficulty, in the inflexible fomi which the elements of the vocabuThe idioms temied Semitic are essentially laiy have now assumed. analytical instead of rendering the complex element of speech in its
;

of two syllables, and the original monosyllable

unity, they prefer to dissect

it

and give

it

term by term.

There

is

marked

disjxjsition to

the root.

This

is

accumulate the expression of the relations round particularly to be observed in Hebrew. These lanpartly in the agglutinated state, although they are

guages, then, are

still

veiy

The subject, the case of the pronoun, the form only one word with the idea itself. The conjunctions, the article, principal idea is, as it were, encircled with particles which modify its The vocabulary sho\\s the closest relations and then form accessories. resemblance between the different languages of the Semitic family.
clearly also inflected.

What
tliis

has

much
is,

contributed to maintain the close homogeneity in

its

family

that

idioms never had that power of giowth that

the Indo-European or Arian languages have, so as to be unceasingly

They have always remained the modified by contmual development. same ; and, to quote the expression of M. Renan, they have less lived
This impress of immutability distinguishes the Semitic than lasted. languages in the highest degree, they have had a great conservative power, that has preserved the fixed form of the pronunciation of the
consonants, and prevented alterations resulting from the softening of
articulation

and other changes which easUy take place. It really seems as if a special dispensation of Providence had endowed them with that faculty of immutable preservation, to facilitate the discharge of the duty imposed on one of them of preserving without alteration, from age to age, the in.spired Book in which the principles of religious truth were

emL)odied.
3.

The name "Semitic," however,

conferred by Eichhorn on this

family of languages, and since universally adopted, is very imjjroper, and even likely to lead to serious enor. They were not really restricted
to nations descended from

Shcm, a large

part, if not the majority, of

72

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Hebrewthe Hamitic nations spoke the so-called Semitic languages. people excluwas originally only the language of the Canaanites, a
sively Hamitic, both in
its

disposition

and physiognomy

the family of

Abraham,

living for

many

generations in the midst of these people,

adopted their language in place of that previously spoken by them, language probably more like Arabic, because of the original parentage The Ghez is spoken by a populaof the races of Heber and Joktan.

which the Hamitic character largely predominates. The Semitic element that came from Yemen, and has been so infused as to become dominant, would, if the language cdlne from there, have brought the Himyaritic, as they did bring the writing of Southern Arabia.
tion in

The monuments

of Babylon and Chaldaja enable us to state that the

language called Assyrian was originally that of the Cushites of the lower Euphrates, and that the Assyrians carried it with them when they formed their settlement in the north. The Himyaritic itself is the idiom of a country where the Cushite race preceded the descendants of
Joktan, and at
tion.
all

If the Joktanites of Southern

times fomied a considerable element in the populaArabia had at the time of their
different

civilisation a

established in the remainder of the Peninsula,

owing to We may, moreover, from a purely

same stock who were it not have been the influence of the race who preceded and mixed with them ?
language

from

tribes of the

may

linguistic point of view, form,

among

t|ie Semitic family, a group of languages composed of the Assyrian, Himyaritic, and Ghez, which we may call the Cushite group, marked

by

certain features peculiar to these three idioms,

and unknown

to the

remainder of the family.

4.

The
to

other nations descended from

Ham

spoke languages closely

related

each other and fonning a special family, called Nilotic, the greater part of the languages, and especially the most important, There having had the valley of the Nile as their birth-place.
first

is

the Egyptian, the most ancient language in which

we

possess
it

written monuments. Although

in use,

somewhat

altered in the course of time,

under the name of Coptic, up to the seventeenth century remained period when it finally gave way to the Arabic, and was of our era, the no longer used except in the liturgy of the native Egyptian Christians. Next come the idioms of tlie Gallas and of Abyssinia, and the whole series of dialects that must be grouped with them, spoken in the disThe Malagasy, or trict between the White Nile and the Red Sea. language of Madagascar, seems to attach itself to them on one side, but The languages of is very much mixed with elements of Malay origin.

Nubia and Kordofan form, in their tum, a peculiar group in the family ; each colony has its own dialect ; and it would be they are numerous We shall only mention that one of impossible to enumerate them here. them, the Bischari, seems to be the last remains of the idiom in which
;


INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.
hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Ethiopians of Meroe are composed.
last division

73

of the same family

is

represented by the Berber, sprung

from the ancient Libyan, and spoken by a great part of the people who To this group are spread over the north and north-west of Africa. A language nearly belong the Kabyle-Algerian, and the Tuarick. related to the Berber was spoken by the Guanches, ancient inhabitants of the Canary Isles. All the idioms, the chief of whicli we have enumerated, composing
the Nilotic family, present a very close original relationship with the

family called Semitic.

The grammatical

stracture

is

essentially

the

some of the most important parts of speech, such as the proThe organisation only is nouns, are in both of them exactly similar. In the vocabulary a large part at least less complete and less perfect. of the roots are common to the two families. But the Nilotic languages have them in a more ancient form, the fonn which belonged to them same
;

before they underwent the modification that in the Semitic languages

invariably put

them

into dissyllables.

The remainder

of the roots are

derived from languages in reality African, spoken by various negro

races.
It is difficult then not to admit with Charles Lenormant, M. Bunsen, and Mr. Stuart Poole, that the Nilotic langviages spring from the same stock as the Semitic, and form with them one single class divided into two families. One language was originally common to the sons of Shem and of Ham. But the Egyptian and its allied idioms were first separated from the main stem, and in a less perfect state of develop-

ment.

In

this

separate state of existence they became, as

it

were,

stereotyped by the fixed standard of the

monuments of

Egj^pt, whilst the

Cushite languages of Asia, of the Canaanites, and Semitic people, continued to progress, arrived at a state of greater perfection, and assumed the character of a distinct family.

Section VI.
I.

The Indo-European Languages.

who
all

The great

family of Indo-European, Arian, or Japhetic languages, speak, or

belongs exclusively to nations sprung from Japhet,

These languages are very numerous, for they have spoken its idioms. have an inherent vitality that forces them into development, progi^ess, and incessant change, in space and in time.
In them the mechanism of inflection is most perfect, most developed, and they retain no apparent trace of the original stage of agglutination. The organisation common to these languages is revealed by a systematic comparison of the idioms representing the most ancient and complete All the Indo-European idioms have more or branches of the family.

74
less

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

resemblance to the Sanscrit, the richest of
all,

and most

like

the

primitive form.

The

further

we

travel east,

the greater resemblance

between the languages of this numerous and noble family, the nearer we get to that which may he considered its typical form. Thus the Celtic tongues, the most western of all the family, are least

we

find

like

the

Sanscrit.

The

birth-place

of these idioms

is

the

country

There, before the "dispersion of the various tribes of the sons of Japhet, was spoken the

between the Caspian Sea and the Hindoo Koosh.

primitive language, the origin of
this
all

the others.

Modem
its

science calls
essential

the Ariac,

and can even partly reconstruct

most

characteristics.

From
been

the earliest times

known
;

to history the

Arian languages have

essentially synthetic

the words are placed in a sentence accord-

ing to the system of construction, for which the Latin is our type. Our Neo-Latin and English idioms have in modern times sprung

from

consequence of the necessity for In finding new forms of speech to express new forms of thought. of the the most primitive state, in the little even that we know
this

family of languages,

in

complex character essentially from the Semitic, with which language its vocabuand moreover this lary has but a small number of words in common small common base may result from the identity of the method em.ployed by both languages in their origin, that is, the onomatopoetic.
Ariac, the genius of the family has a
it

distinguishing

would nevertheless be exaggeration to assume it as impossible that Philologers of these two linguistic families were originally sisters. pronounced that the Arian tongues were produced high authority have by the modifying influence of the Semitic on the Turanian languages. Without prejudging anything as to the reciprocal affiliation, more or less direct, of the Indo-European idioms, an affiliation which preist. sents serious difficulties, we may divide them into six gi-oups
It
:

the Indian

2nd. Iranian

3rd. Pelasgic or Greco-Latin 6th. Celtic.

;

4th. Sla-

vonian
2.

5th.

Germanic

and

The

Sanscrit forms the base of the Indian group

it is

the sacred

and

scientific

language of the Brahmins.

lives as

it must, from so long most perfect type of an inflected language, as the meaning of the name which the Indians have given it This signifies, Sansciita, that is, "that which is complete in itself." so rich in articulations, rendered so flexible by imsonorous language, provised poetry, is called by those who write it, " the language of the

centuries,

it still

a literary

Spoken language, and

for

more than twenty

an existence, have become the

gods," and

its

alphabet "writing of the gods" deva nugciri.

consider the

The

language that we may is the Pali, once spoken on the east of Hindustan, and now become the learned and religious language of the Buddhists of Ceylon, of Madura
eldest daughter of the Sanscrit,

IXDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.
in the

75

Burman

empire, and of

tlie

Indo-Cliinese provinces.
;

The

Pracrit

dialects are of

the second generation

this

name

Pracrita

signifies

"inferior," "imperfect," and has been given to idioms which were the vulgar tongues of India in the ages immediately anterior to the

Christian era.

These

dialects are especially preserved in the Indian

dramas, where they are put into the mouths of inferior personages. Next come languages of later birth, and restricted to certain provinces,

whence they take

The Hindui names. These are still in use. with its seven dialects the Hindustani, the language of the upper classes of all Central India, from Calcutta to Bombay ; the Cashmerian,
their

To these we the Bengali, the Guzerati, the Mahratta, the Nepalese. must add the Zingari, the idiom of that strange race, originally Indian,
who wander
all

over Europe, and are called according to the country,

is

Zigeuner, Zingari, Gitanos, Bohemians, or Gipsies. 3. The most ancient type of the idioms of the Iranian group
in the Zend,

found

and the Persian of the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achse-

menian kings. The Zend is originally from Bactria ; it is the language Like the Sanscrit, it had ceased to be a of the books of Zoroaster. the Christian era, and its use was confined spoken language before
entirely to literature.

The

scale of articulations

is less

varied in these
i,

languages than in the Sanscrit, as they have only three vowels, a,

u.

About the time of the Sassanians the Persian language had already undergone great alterations, and still further modifications followed the The Parsee was then formed, the connecting Moslem invasion.
link between the idiom of the Achsemenians and the

modem

Persian.

coming from the province of Ears, has been handed down by many generations of eminent poets, under the independent dynasties of Persia in the middle ages, but mixed in its phraseology with Turkish and Arabic words and forms of speech. Alterations of another kind in the Zend have given birth to the Gheber, spoken by the descendants of those obstinate dissenters from Zoroastrianism who took refuge in
This
last,

India.

To

the Iranian group also are attached,

among

other

still

living

idioms, the Affghan or Pushtoo, the Belochee, the Kurdish, the

Arme-

nian with

its

rich literature,

and

its

many

existing

which has flourished for fourteen centuries, vulgar dialects, and finally the Ossitinian, spoken
in the centre of the chain of the

by a small nation dwelling

Caucasus.

The

Pehlvi has been produced by a mixture of Semitic and Iranian

;

elements

the

grammar

is

used at the court of the

first

Arama;an, the vocabulary Persic. It was Sassanian kings and one of the books
;

attributed to Zoroaster, the Bundehesh, exists only in that language. 4. "The Greco-Latin group comprehends the greater part of the

languages of Southern Europe.

characterises
it,

The

epithet
first

'

Pelasgic

'

sufficiently

for

Greece and Italy were

peopled by one

common


76

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

race, the Pelasgi,

whose idiom seems to have been tlie source of both Greek and Latin. The first of these languages is not in reality the mother of the otlier, as lias been believed they are two sisters, and if we must
;

assign a different age to them, the Latin has a right to be considered

the elder.

This language, in
Greek.

fact,

presents a

more archaic character

The most ancient dialect of the Hellenic idiom, .the ^olian, resembles Latin much more than more recent Greek dialects. The Latin has in no respect the character of a language formed from
than
classical

the decomposition of one more ancient, or by its mixture with others. It bears in a high degree the synthetic character of ancient idioms. The

elements of grammar have not yet resolved themselves into so many different words, and the phraseology as well as the conjugation of the
verb, and the most ancient of
its

declensions, present a striking likeness

to the Sanscrit.

Its
is

vocabulary contains a host of words, the archaic

The Latin belongs to a group of seems to have gradually absorbed the Sabine, which originally furnished many Latin words, the Umbrian, the Oscan spoken in Campania, the Messapian, and lapygian. The Etruscan, we know only from a small number of words, and it seems to have been a separate branch of the Pelasgic stem. The present language of the Albanians, although now very much mixed with Greek and Slavonic M'ords, seems to be one of the least altered of those derived from the Pelasgic. In many of its forms it seems to point to a grammatical system nearer the Sanscrit than even the Greek." A. Maury.
entirely Ariac.

form of which
languages

now

lost,

and which

it

The decomposition
to

of the Latin during the middle ages, gave birth

the

present

languages of
Portugiiese,

Southern
the

Europe,

grouped together
French, Pro-

under the
vencal,

common name

of " Neo-Latin."

The

Italian,

Spanish,

language of the Grisons, and the

languages resembles very

Rouman of the Danubian Principalities. and Slavonic 5. The group of Lettic

closely the Indian
;

and Iranian languages. The genius of the primitive Ariac is remarkably conspicious in them this group is divided into two branches, the Lettic and Slavonian properly so called. The first belongs to a period less advanced than the second. The Lithuanian substantive has, for example, only two genders, whilst the Slavonic has
three.

The

Slavonic conjugation

is

also superior to the Lithuanian,

in

which the

third person of the singular, dual

and plural are not

dis-

branch comprises first the Lithuanian, of all the spoken languages of Europe approaching nearest to the Sanscrit; next the Borussian or ancient Prussian, which has been displaced
tinguished.
Lettic

The

by the German and finally the Lettic or Livonian. branch is by far the most extended; we may even say
;

The

Slavonic

that of all the

groups of languages in Europe,

this

is

the one spoken by the gi^eatest

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.
number of
persons.
Its

77

name Slave
all

is

derived from a word implying

its

the idea of "glory," a term which

to themselves.

nations speaking

idioms apply

With

the exception of the Bulgarian, which has under-

gone great alterations, the Slavonic idioms preserve a greater likeness to each other than, for example, the Gennanic languages. A traveller who knows one of its dialects perfectly can make himself understood in the whole extent of territory where they are spoken from Montenegro to Kamchatka. The Slavonic languages m.ust be divided into two great branches The most ancient known form of the the Eastern and Western.

first is

the Slavonic, the liturgical language of the Russian

church,

which has ceased to be spoken since the end of the middle ages. By its side we must place the Bulgarian, also representing a very ancient state of langiiage, and which has been earned from the neighbourhood of the Oural to the banks of the Danube, where it is gradually disappearing. Tbe Russian, whose domain has been so prodigiously extended by conquest, and which is supplanting by degrees the Uralofinnish and Tartar idioms ; and finally the Servian, spoken between the Adriatic Sea and the Danube. The Western Slavonic idioms are the Polish, the Tschekh or Bohemian, the Sorabian or Wendish, of Lower Lusatia, to which we must add some languages rooted out many ages ago by the German, such as the Cachoub of Lauenburg, the Polab and the Obotrite of the banks of
the Elbe. Generally speaking, these idioms are harsher, less harmonious,

and more
6.

fiill

of consonants than those of the eastern branch, parti-

cularly the Tschekh.

" The

vast family of

Gennanic languages, which has by degrees

supplanted the Slavonic, embraces at present a great number of idioms,

successors of others of the

same

family,

now

entirely lost.

All these

languages are distinguished by

the most celebrated of

common

characteristics

springing from

the Ariac gi-ammar by regular and graduated alterations.

German

Philologists

whose labours

him ahnost a
languages

legislator in the

comparative grammar of

One of have made the German

Jacob Grimmhas
class,

distinguished four fundamental charac-

teristics in this family.

First, the

tendency of the vowel to soften in

pronunciation, to indicate a modification in the meaning or employ-

ment of a word.

Secondly, the transformation of one consonant into

softer, stronger,

another of the same

or aspirated.
is,

Thirdly, the

existence of strong and

weak

conjugations, that

conjugations in which

the radical vowel changes according to certain rules, and of conjugations

A. Maury. it remains invariable." The Germanic languages form two branches, Gothic and Gcnnan. We know the ancient Gothic only by a small number of written remains, among which we must place in the first rank the fragments of the

where

78

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

To
the

version of the Bible, by Bishop Ulphilas in the fourth century.

same branch belong,

ist,

the Norse idiom of the old Scandinavians,

preserved almost unaltered in Iceland, and which by gradual alterations

has formed the Danish and Swedish.

2nd.

The Anglo-Saxon, which

by

its

mixture with the old French, and in consequence of special

3rd.

modifications due particularly to Celtic influences, has produced the

The Low German, itself comprising many dialects ; Dutch and the Flemish. These last languages are the the Frison, the remains of the Saxon, which was spoken, with slight differences, from state to state in the whole north-west of Gennany, from the Elbe and Weser to the Rhine and the Scheldt. As for the German branch, properly the High German, since Luther's so called, it comprises four dialects, time the language of letters and society in all Germany, the Swabian,
English.

the Austrian, and the Franconian.

7. The Celtic tongues, now restricted to a small number of provinces France and the British Isles, are, of all the Indo-European languages, the furthest westward from the primitive settlements of man, and are These idioms doubtless do recall the Sanscrit also the most altered. general resemblance to that language. Followgrammar, but have no ing the laws of the permutation of consonants, that we mentioned when speaking of the German languages, we may carry back the Celtic vocabularies to the Sanscrit and Ariac but the grammatical forms have been so altered that it is often difficult to attach them, at any rate directly, The Gaulish has to the ordinary types of the Indo-European family. disappeared, supplanted by the Latin ; there only remain a few inscripThe Celtic idioms which are still tions still imperfectly explained. living, are classed in two groups, Cymric or Breton, and Gallic or The first embraces the Cymric properly so called, or the Gselic. Welsh, the language still used in a great part of Wales, and the Cornish, which up to the last century remained in use in the county of Cornwall finally, the Armorican or Breton, in general use in France in the Departments of the Cotes du Nord, Finistere, Morbihan and part of Loire To the second belong the Irish, the Gffilic properly so Inferieure. called, or Erse, spoken in the Highlands of Scotland, and lastly, the

in

Manx
The

or dialect of the Isle of

Man.
of the races of

hasty view

we have taken

mankind and the

various families of languages, has led us insensibly far from the primitive

And thus M'e find ourselves led days of humanity to our own times. away from the history of ancient Oriental civilisation, to which these We now return enquiries were nevertheless a necessary introduction.
to our

proper subject, not again to deviate from

it.

END OF BOOK

I.

79

BOOK
CHAPTER
MOSES.
Chief Authorities
Ahcnibers,

11.

THE ISRAELITES.
I,

THE PATRIARCHS THE ISRAELITES IN EGYPT-

ami Deuteronomy. ^Josephus, Antiqicities of the Jews. Books I., II. The dissertations attached to the Pentateuch in Dr. Cahn's and M. Cahen's Bible. Munk, La Palestine, Paris,
Volkes Israel, Gottingen, 1851-64. Wallon, La Sainte Bible, Paris, 1854.J. Salvador, Ilistoire des institutions de Moise, Third Edition, Paris, 1862.
Geschichte des 1845.

The

Bible,

Books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Ewald,

Section
I.

I.

Abraham.
human
race forgot the great

By

degrees the various nations of the

traditions of their primitive history, or rather, they preserved the recol-

lection only of some detached facts which, as time

went on, became mixed

up with purely imaginative was gradually obscured in

all

stoi"ies.

The

idea of the existence of

God
itself

their

minds, and idolatry established

over the world.

and passion," says Bossuet, " had neverthevague idea of the Divine power, which maintained itself by its own inherent force, but which, eclipsed by objects apparent to the senses, led him to worship all objects displaying activity and power. Thus the sun and the stars, that made their influence felt from such a distance, fire, and the elements whose effects were so universal, were the

"Man

drovATied in lust

less preserved a

earliest objects of public

worship."

To

arrest the progress of so great

an

evil

and

to prevent its final

triumph, which would have eliminated from the world the true concep-

God in His great power and infinite mercy chose one family out of that race of Shem on whom the second father of the human race, Noah, had invoked special blessings and, calling it to a sublime vocation, imposed on it the duty of preserving the ancient faith no less as to the creation of the world, than as to that special Providence which governs all human affairs, and made it the dejjository of the pretion of the Divinity,
;

cepts delivered and promises

made

to the

human

race.


8o
2.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Terah, of
tlie

race

of Arphaxad, lived in the district bearing

is, in the south of Chaldsea his resiUr, called also Calneh, the Mugheir of our
;

the

name

of his ancestor, that

city of

dence was in the

Loftus.*

time, the ruins of wliich have been explored

by the English

traveller

He had
left

three sons,

Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

still

The

last

died in his father's lifetime, whilst the family

habitation, and

dwelt in their original

of the country

a son

named

Lot.

The

sterility

where they lived rendering it unsuited to a race entirely given to pastoral life, induced Terah to change his residence and to migrate with all his family to the northern countries. He came to the town of Haran in the north of Mesopotamia, settled there, and died at the age
of 205 years.

was
old,

Then God revealed His mission to Abram, to become the " father of the faithful."

the destiny by which he

He was

then 65 years

" Get thee out of and his father did not die till 60 years later. thy countiy, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house," said the Lord to him, "unto a land that I will show thee and I will make of
;

and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed " (Gen. xii. i The 3). popular traditions of the Jews and Arabs, which appear here to rest on an ancient foundation, add that this emigration was rendered necessary in consequence of the dangers which threatened the pious Abram in the midst of idolatrous populations, and even in the house of his father, a
thee a great nation, and
I will bless thee,

zealous worshipper of false gods.t

The

historian Josephus, the echo of

the legends of the Synagogue, says that the inhabitants of the region of
against him, and wished to punish him for the with which he had treated their divinities. contempt We may also

Haran took up arms

connect this event with the Elamite conquest that occurred about this time, and as we shall show in the fourth book, affected the whole basin
of the Euphrates and Tigris.
3.

Abram obeyed

the

commands

of the Lord.

Leaving in Haran

* In identifying the ruins now called " Mugheir," with both Ur and Calneh, the author differs from Sir H. Rawlinson and other English authorities, who believe Mugheir to represent Ur, and Calneh to be found at Nipur. (See Professor Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. 20.) The reasons which have led the author to this conclusion are, that Ur must have been one of the cities of the primitive Chalda;an tetrapolis (Gen. X. 10), and that no other name in the list but Calneh can stand for Ur. Also, that the ideographic name of Ur in the cuneiform inscriptions means " dwelling of Oannes ;" and that the name Calneh is a corruption of " Hekal Anu," with the same meaning. Tr.

t Jo.s. Ant. I., vii. 2; Koran, " The Spider ;" vi. "Cattle."

ch.

xxi.

"The

Prophets;" xxix.

ABRAM
his fixther,

IN EGYPT.

8i

and Nahor

his brother,

the south with Sarai his wife, Lot, his brother's son, and
his
;

he departed, directing his course to all that were

he thus passed over the Euphrates, traversed Syria, and arrived at

last in the

country of Canaan (in after times Judsca), which name signi" the low countiy," in opposition to Aram, or the elevated disIt was then entirely occupied by Canaanitish tribes of the race trict. of Ham, who had built cities, and lived in settled habitations, allowing the nomadic tribes of the Shemites to wander about, feeding their flocks in the pastures adjacent to the cities, just as in the present day the Bedouin tribes wander even up to the gates of tlie cities of Syria and Palestine. Arrived in the land of Canaan, Abram (Gen. xii. 6, 7), in the district of Sichem, had a vision in wliicli God announced to liim that the whole of that land should one day belong to his seed. He then built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him, and also another between Bethel and Hai, in the place where he had pitched his tents, in the rich pastures of the lower Jordan, and after having called there upon the name of the Lord, he pursued his course towards the south. A famine obliged him to go to Egypt and sojourn there some time (Gen. xii. 10, seq.) Fearing lest his wife Sarai, who was very beautiful, should be taken from him, and that he himself should be subjected to violence, he asked her to pass herself off for a sister, whose natural The king, whom the Bible designates (as it protector he would be. does all Egyptian kings mentioned in the books of Genesis and Exodus), only by his title Pharaoh (in Egyptian Pir aa), having heard of the beauty of Sarai, sent for her to the palace ; he treated Abram with great distinction, and made him handsome presents of slaves and cattle. But, stopped in his project by a Divine chastisement, and having learned that Sarai was the wife of Abram, he restored her to her husband,
fied

and sent them out of the country with all that they had. 4. Abram returned, still accompanied by Lot, his brother's son, to the place of his former encampment between Bethel and Hai. Abram and Lot led a life similar in every respect to that of the Arab Sheikh of our days. A crowd of hereditary servants wandered as they now do, going from one pasture ground to another as soon as the first was exhausted, with the flocks and herds of their masters, or rather of their lords, for each patriarchal family formed a small nomadic state in which, in all probability, the shepherds were bound to the chief of the tribe by
ties of relationship

more or

less distant

(Gen.

xiii.

i, seq.].

The

great

and herds of the uncle and nephew rendered it difficult to feed them together, their servants began to quarrel on the Abram allowed Lot subject, and a separation became necessary. He decided on the to choose the region in which he would dwell. fertile banks of the Lower Jordan and the basin of the Dead Sea,

number of the

flocks

which, at

its

southern extremity, offered a country of magnificent pasture

82

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

now
called

land in the plain

lo, seq.)

Ghor

Safieh,

which the Bedouin

tribes of
xiii.

that part of Syria

still

regard as a real terrestrial paradise (Gen.

This plain was in the immediate vicinity of Sodom, the chief of the five confederate cities, built round the inland sea; the four others were Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Segor, or Zoar. Their inhabitants

seem to have been of Canaanitish blood but they were horribly corrupt, given over to impiety, to iniquity of every kind, and to the most In infamous vices, which drew down on them the Divine vengeance. the city of Sodom itself, spite of that, Lot fixed his dwelling within After the leaving his flocks and herds in the Ghor (Gen. xiii. 14). departure of his nephew, Abram had another vision, in which God renewed to him the promise of an innumerable posterity, to whom the whole surrounding country should belong. He then came and dwelt in
;

the grove of

Mamre, near Hebron, a

city

then occupied by the Hittites,

a Canaanitish race.
5.

He

there built another altar to Jehovah.

had conquered the

In the meanwhile, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, that is of Susiana, valley of the Jordan, and brought into subjection to

his sceptre the five

towns of the borders of the Dead Sea, that

i,

is,

the

country where Lot had settled (Gen. xiv.

seq.).

Twelve years he

remained

their master; but in the thirteenth year, the petty kings of that

Chedorlaomer was occupied by wars in the north But the Elamite of Arabia, thought they could thro\^' off the yoke. king came against them with his vassals, Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, and Thargal, king of nations, or of the nomadic
region, seeing that
tribes.

The Dead

battle took place in the vale of Siddim, on the borders of the

Sea, where were

many

wells of bitumen.

The people

of the

Sodom, Gomorrah, and the three other cities were pillaged, and Lot was led away captive. Of this Abram was informed by a fugitive. He was at the time living at Mamre, and was With his ally in alliance with the Canaanitish prince of the country.
country were routed.

and the two brothers of that prince, and all his own servants, he commenced the pursuit of the enemy, who had begun to retreat. He overnorthern extremity of Palestine, at the place where, in Attacking them by night, he later times, was built the city of Dan. The four kings were pursued to the neighbourhood gained the victory.

took them

at the

of Damascus.

Lot was rescued, and

all

the booty retaken.

It

was on

this occasion that

Abram

received the blessing of Melchizedek, king of

Salem, priest of the most high God, whose tribe, no doubt of Semitic origin, was one of the very few who in their pastoral life had been able

preferred,

Book IV., the reason why we have of this prince, the reading Thargal, from the Septuagint, to the Tidal of the Hebrew text.
*
shall explain further on, in
for the

We

name


THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM.
to preserve intact the primitive belief in the unity of

83

God.*

Aljram

generously refused to receive for himself the smallest portion of the

and accepted only a share for his allies. Abram, overpowered with gratitude for the success which by God's help he had obtained, had again at this time one of those visions which signalised every important event of his life, confirmed him in his faith, and inspired him with all confidence for the future. "I am thy shield " (Gen. xv. I, seq.), said the Lord to him, " and thy exceeding great reward." " Lord God what wilt thou give and one born in my me," said Abram, " seeing I go childless house is mine heir." "Look now towards heaven," was the reply, " and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them and he said unto
booty which the king of
offered him,
. . .

Sodom

him.
out of
then,

So

shall thy

seed be

....

am

Jehovah, that brought thee

it.

Ur

of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit

"

Abram,

by the command of God, performed

;

the symboUcal ceremony which

sealed his covenant with the Eternal

he sacrificed a number of animals,

and cut them in pieces; and, in a vision, he saw God himself, under the form of a flame of fire, pass between these pieces. This was the form by which, among the Orientals, solemn treaties were concluded and St. Ephrsem, the Syrian, in his commentary on Genesis, speaks of this He who swore to practice as in use among the Chaldseans in his time. the alliance by passing thus between the severed limbs of the victims, intimated that he consented to be thus treated if he violated his promise. From similar practices the Greek phrase opKia rkfxvdv, and the Latin
;

fcedus feri7-e, are derived.

6.

After a ten years' sojourn in the land of Canaan, Sarai, despairing

Abram, wished him to take to wife her servant, Hagar. She, lifted up by pride, began to despise The servant, given over to her mistress, who complained to Abram. She was seated treatment of a jealous mistress, took to flight. the bad
of ever giving a son to

the Egyptian

woman

by a fountain in the desert when she was visited by an angel, who announced that the son she bore in her bosom should one day become powerful, and should have a numerous posterity, and ordered Returning to her to return and submit herself to her mistress. the dwelling of Abram, she bore him a son, who was called Ishmael (God shall hear). Abram was then eighty-six years old. Thirteen This years after this event, God renewed His covenant with Abram. name, which signifies " Exalted Father," was changed by God himself to Abraham, Father of a great Multitude, " signifying the immense posterity
'

'

* The commonly received opinion among the Jews, according to Jerome, and also among the Samaritans, according to Epiphanius, was that Melchizedek was the Patriarch Shem, who according to the commonly received chronology must have been alive at this time. Tr.

84

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

;

which should spring from the patriarch and circumcision was instituted symbol of this renewed covenant, and as the distinctive sign of the sons of Abraham. Sarai received the name of Sarah (mistress, princess), and God promised to Abraham another son by her in whom
as the

the Divine covenant should be perpetuated.

As

for Ishmael, the

Lord

announced that twelve princes should spring from him, and that his posterity should be very numerous. 7. By this time Abraham had arrived at the age of ninety-nine years, and Sarah ninety years. Without doubt, as we have already said, the life of men who led the active and frugal life of the patriarchs was still much longer than that of their contemporaries but it was much more brief than life had been before the Deluge and at the age to which Abraham and his wife had arrived, all natural appearances were against their having children. One day three strangers presented themselves before the tent of Abraham, who entreated them to enter, and hastened to fulfil towards them the duties of hospitality. They revealed themselves then to him as angels of God, and repeated the promise that next year Sarah should have a son. The aged woman, who from inside the tent heard this prediction, could not help laughing, but was blamed by the angels for doubting the Divine power which could perform in her
; ;

a miracle (Gen. xx.

8.

i, seq.).

At

that time occurred the catastrophe of

Sodom and

the other

border

cities

of the

Dead

Sea.

Their iniquities and corruption had

increased to such a degree, that

ment an example

to

the world.

God determined to make their punishAbraham in vain interceded for the

Mdiose presence would have

doomed
sufficed,

cities

the

ten righteous men,

according to God's word, to turn away the anger of the Lord,

were not found in Sodom. Warned by the angels. Lot and his two daughters, whose betrothed husbands made light of the matter, and refused to follow, fled in all haste to Zoar. Then Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim were reduced to ashes, without the escape of one inhabitant, by a fearful convulsion of nature, poetically termed in the Bible a rain of fire and brimstone, but which appears to have been in reality a prodigious volcanic eruption from a great number of craters at once, and of which the surrounding country shows traces to this day. Lot, fearing to remain at Zoar, where he did not consider himself free from danger, retired with his two daughters to a cave in the desert to There the book of Genesis records the the east of the Dead Sea. incestuous birth of Moab and Ammon, ancestors of the nations whom Moses and Joshua found established on the eastern banks of the Jordan and of the Dead Sea. 9. Continuing to lead the wandering life of a nomad shepherd, Abraham settled for a time in the country of Gerar, near Gaza, on the frontier between Egypt and Palestine. He made a treaty with the


DEATH OF SARAH.
in

85

king of that country, named Abimelech, beside a well which was called,

memory
in that

of the circumstance, Beersheba (the Well of the Oath).

It

was

country that, in accordance with the promise of the messen-

gers,

Isaac, from the

Sarah brought into the world a son, \\lio received the name of Hebrew word " Yitschak " (laughing), for, said Sarah, "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear me will laugh with

me."

At a feast wliicli Abraham made on the occasion of the weaning of Isaac, Sarah saw a mocking smile on the face of Ishmael, son of
Hagar, and again she demanded the banishment of the servant and of Hagar and Ishmael wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, and they were on the point of dying with thirst, when a voice from heaven consoled and encouraged them. A fountain appeared before their eyes, and they slaked their thirst. Ishmael gi-ew up in exile and became a practised archer, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt. He became the head of the second race of Nomadic Arabs, who mixed with the first tribes sprung from Joktan, over whom in course of time they gained the supremacy. The most illustrious of all tlie Arab tribes directly descended from Ishmael was that of the Koreish, who inhabited Mecca, and possessed there the famous sanctuary of the Caabah, traditionally said to have been built by Ishmael and Abraham. From this tribe
her son.
spi"uug
10.

Mahomet.

Abraham
;

returned towards the north, and remained

many

years

was tliat his faitli was put to its most severe test God commanded him to offer up his son Isaac in sacrifice. Though his heart was torn with grief, he, nevertheless, did not hesitate to obey and when he was aheady on the point of consummating this cruel sacrifice, he was stayed by a voice from on high, telling him that God was satisfied with this proof of his obedience. At the same moment he saw behind him a ram, which he took and offered up
settled at

Mamre.

There

it

in the stead of his son (Gen. xxii.

i, set/.).

short time afterwards

Sarah died, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years. Abraham bought from the Hittites of Hebron, then called Kirjath Arba, a sepulchral cave near tliat city, to make it his family tomb, and there
buried the body of Sarah.

Section

II

Isaac

and

Jacob.

I. "When Abraham found himself old, and perceived that his end approached, he wished to get a wife for his son Isaac, that he might become the progenitor of the chosen jjcoplc. Unwilling to form an

alliance

with the daughters of the Canaanites, he sent his steward

to

Ehezer

Mesopotamia,

to

choose

for

Isaac

a wife from his

own

86

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

people. Arrived at the gates of the city of Haran, where one branch of the family of Terah had remained after the departure of Abraham, Eliezer stayed by a well, and saw a very beautiful young woman who
there to draw water. When she was about to return, having her vessel, Eliezer asked her to give him to drink. She inclined the vessel towai'ds him, and offering to draw also for his camels, she

came

filled

went for more water, which she gave them. In this mark of courteous and ingenuous manners, Eliezer recognised the sign which he had asked
of the Lord, to point out to

him

the

woman

destined to inherit the

he learned also that the damsel, whose name was Rebecca (Ribkah, fat heifer), was the daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor, Abraham's brother, and consequently his master's niece. He accepted the hospitality which was offered him by Bethuel, imparted to him his mission, and Rebecca went off Math him \\'ith the blessines
;

Divine promises

Although Abraham was one hundred and forty years he took after his son's marriage another wife, named Keturah, by whom he had six sons. One was Midian, the father of the Midianites,
of her family.
old,

who

lived

to the east of the Nabatheans.

between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea, Abraham gave rich gifts to these sons,

but sent them out of Palestine that his inlieritance there might pass
entire
to

Isaac.

He, who was

forty years

old at the time

of his

marriage, remained twenty years without children.

his prayers,

At

last

God heard

and Rebecca bore him twins. The first-bom was called Edom (the red), on account of his colour ; the second received the name of Jacob (the supplanter). Abraham lived long enough to .see the Divine promise accomplished in the posterity of
Esau, and also
Isaac.

He

died fifteen years after the birth of the two brothers, at the

age of one hundred and seventy-five years, and was buried by Isaac and Ishmael in the tomb of his family, by the side of Sarah. This tomb, it
said, pointed out by constant and unbroken tradition, still exists under the great Mosque at Hebron but Christians are rigorously excluded by the Mahometans fi-om the building.* The life of Isaac presents no very noticeable event. Adopting 2. his father's nomadic mode of life, the second patriarch passed all his existence partly in the pastures of Mamre and partly in those of Gerar sometimes in strict friendship with the king of that country, M'ho, like his predecessor in the time of Abraham, was called Abimelech ; at others, exposed to the ill-will and jealousy of the inhabitants, who, like all people of settled and agricultural occupations, were ill enough
is
:

The

first

European who entered

this jNIosque,

centuries closed against all Christians, was H. R. Wales. most interesting account of the visit Stanley in his Lectures ojt the Jewish Church. Tr.

which had been for H. the Prince of is given by Dean


JACOB IN HARAN.
disposed toward nomadic shepherds.

87
of Genesis ascribes to
befell

The book

Isaac, during one of his visits to Gerar, the like adventure as

This seems to be merely a double tradition, founded on one occurrence. Esau was the eldest son of Isaac, but Jacob was the particular favourite of his mother Rebecca. He one day
in

Abraham

Egypt.

bought the birthright from his elder brother, and afterwards, with his mother's assistance, contrived by stratagem to receive, in place of Esau, the blessing which should render him the heir of the promises of God From that time he found himself exposed to to the race of Abraham. and to escape the consequences, was the furious hatred of his brother compelled to fly to Mesopotamia, to Laban, Rebecca's brother ; and this, by the advice of his mother, and by order of his father, who, after
;

the example of Abraham, was not willing that the heir of his race

During his flight, Jacob had at famous vision in which he saw a ladder, above it stood Jehovah, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it In memory of this event, he named the place (Genesis xxviii. 10). Bethel (House of God,) which name was continued by his descendants. 3. Having crossed the Euphrates, Jacob met the shepherds of Haran, who showed him Rachel (the sheep), one of the daughters of Laban, who herself fed her father's flocks. Jacob made himself known, and was received in a most friendly manner by Laban but he would not give him his daughter Rachel until he had served him fourteen years, and had married Leah, Rachel's elder sister. Jacob had twelve sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtaii,Gad, Asher, Issachar, ZebuIon, Joseph, and Benjamin, who were the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Israel, and one daughter named Dinah. Issachar, Zebulon and Dinah were born of Leah ; Dan and Naphtali, of Bilhah, the handmaid of Rachel; Gad and Asher, of Zilpah, the handmaid of Leah ; and at the last, the youngest, Joseph and Benjamin, of Rachel After a long sojourn herself, who had been barren for many years. with Laban, Jacob determined at last to return to his father, who was he became reconciled with Esau, who abandoned to him the still alive possession and exclusive enjoyment of the pastures of the land of Canaan, and retired with his own people to Mount Seir, now Esh Sherah* to the north of the Elanitic gulf, where he became the founder of the

should marry a Canaanitish woman.

Luz

that

Idumean

or

Edomite

nation.

One

circumstance in the Bible narrative,

as to this return of Jacob, shows us that idolatry existed in the house of I^aban, as we have before seen was the case in that of his ancestor

Terah.

It is also

during this journey that the Book of Genesis places

* The northern part is now called Jebal ; the southern, Esh Sherah the latter name means merely "district," and has no comiection with Tk. the Hebrew word Seir, " the hairy."

88

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

whence he obtained

the mysterious wrestling of Jacob with the angel, the

name

of Israel (one

who

has fought with God), a

name borne only

by

his heirs,

who

called themselves children of Israel, or Israelites.

4. Very severe trials awaited Jacob after his return to the land of Canaan. Shechem, son of Hamor, prince of the Shechemites, carried off and outraged his daughter Dinah. He afterwards asked her in marriage,

but the sons of Jacob conspired to take a

terril^le

vengeance on

all

the

They appeared to consent to the marriage, under conwhich facilitated a treacherous attack which Simeon and Levi made on the city, when they killed all the men ; the other sons of Jacob then pillaged the city, and carried off the women and children, and flocks and herds. Jacob was much grieved at this event, and reproached them severely for their atrocious conduct and perfidy. The whole family left the district of Shechem, where they no longer
Shechemites.
ditions

believed themselves safe.

to a second son, Benjamin.

At Ephrath,

in later times

called Bethle-

hem, Jacob had the misfortime

to lose Rachel,

who

died in giving birth

Her tomb is still sliowoi in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. Jacob then repaired to Mamre, where his father Isaac still lived, and continued to live, to the age of one hundred and eighty years. He therefore must have been a witness of the incident which we have now to relate, and of the grief of his son Jacob. 5. Joseph, Rachel's eldest son, was regarded with peculiar affection by his father, who showed him frequent marks of tenderness, and seemed disposed to transfer to him the privileges which, by right of

birth, belonged to the sons of Leah. Moreover, the three elder sons of Jacob had, by serious misconduct, incurred their father's anger. Joseph, beloved by his father, but regarded almost as an enemy by his brothers, brought accounts to Jacob of all the evil doings of his elder brothers. Attaching in his childhood great importance to dreams, in which he seemed to read the future, Joseph did not hesitate to relate to his brothers some of his nightly visions which seemed to presage for him a His brothers conceived mortal hatred for him, and brilliant career. One day Jacob sent Joseph to see conspired to bring about his ruin. his brethren, who were feeding their flocks in the neighbourhood of Shechem. Seeing him alone, they formed the plan of killing him ; nevertheless, Reuben, the eldest, upon whom the chief weight of responsibility would have fallen, tried to save Joseph, and managed to persuade his brothers to put the lad into a dry well, whence he himself intended But, in his temporary absence, a caravan of afterwards to release him. Midianitish merchants passed on their way to Egypt. Judah persuaded his brothers to sell Joseph to these men, who in their turn sold him to Potiphar, or Petephra (belonging to the sun), an officer of the army of a king of Egypt, whom Holy Scripture designates only by his title of The elder sons of Jacob made then- fatlier beUeve that some Pharaoh. wild beast had devoured Joseph.

JOSEPH IN EGYPT.
Section
1.

89

III.

^Joseph in Egypt.

good graces of his master, him the superintendence of his house. But, on a false accusation by the wife of Potiphar, he was put in prison, where God revealed to him the hidden meaning of the mysterious dreams of his two companions in captivity. One of the two, chief butler of the king, was soon restored to the favour of his master, as Joseph had foretold ; but he did not, as he had promised, remember Joseph. Two years later, however, the king, in his turn, having seen in a dream seven lean kine, and seven withered ears of corn, which eat up seven fat kine, and seven full ears of com, was much disturbed, and desired that the vision should be interpreted to him. The chief butler then remembered the Hebrew slave who had so truly predicted his own and his companion's fate. Joseph was brought out of prison and presented to the king, and informed him that seven years of famine should succeed seven years of plenty. Let us here remark, in passing, that the number of years seven must not be taken literally. The number seven was used by the vision of seven fat and the Egyptians as an indeterminate number seven lean kine would the more naturally present itself to the mind of the king, because the "seven cows belonging to the divine bull " were

Joseph

in slavery quickly acquired the

who

entrasted to

among
in

the most important symbols of Egyptian Paganism.*

And

also
shall

an Egyptian inscription, dating from the twelfth dynasty (we

explain this expression in our Third Book), and, consequently,

many

centuries older than Joseph, the governor of a province boasts of having provided granaries to meet the wants of seven years ; that is, granaries

capable of supplying
2.

many

successive years of scarcity.

Egypt, at the time when Joseph was taken there, was divided into
in

two kingdoms,
Third Book,

consequence of events which

It

we

shall relate in our

had its own native-bom Lower Egypt had been occupied for princes only in the Thebaid. many centuries by invaders of Canaanitish race, known by the name of Shepherds, who had at last adopted Egyptian manners, and had established a dynasty of princes of their own blood. It was before one of He these kings, named Apophis, or Apepi, that Joseph was brought. not, and was not likely to have, the same repugnance as an Egyphad tian for the sei'vices of a stranger, for he himself was likewise of foreigii origin. Struck with the counsel of Joseph, and with his wisdom, the king judged that no one could be found better able to meet the predicted scourge than a man so favoured by heaven. He put a ring on his finger, a golden collar on his neck (a mark of honour frequently mentioned in
in the history of that country.

Egyptian "Funeral Ritual," chap,

cxlix.

90
the

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

a robe of fine linen, a herald,

monuments of Egypt), clothed him with made him ride in a chariot, accompanied by
to all the people to

and

who proclaimed

bow

the knee before him, for that he was chosen

governor of

all

the land of Egypt.

signifies

The king
for,

conferred on Joseph an

Egyptian name, which

that
is,

"

sustainer of the world " {Zaph-n-to);

in the

Egyptian language, the country [the country Egypt), and the world were expressed by the same word [to). The new minister married the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis, named Petephra, the same as his old master her name was, Neith as the Bible tells us, Asenath, that is, " the precious Neith."
nourisher of the country,
;

was an Egyptian goddess. Manasseh and Ephraim.

3.

By

this

marriage Joseph had two sons,

Joseph collected, in public granaries constructed for the purpose, a part of the superabundant harvest of the years of plenty, and distributed it on the king's part among the Egyptians in the years of In return for this provision, and the assistance which had saved famine. them, the son of Jacob required that the inhabitants of Egypt should " fee simple " of tlieir surrender to the king what lawyers would call the
lands, paying a quit rent of one-fifth of the produce for the right of The priests were exempt, because they were entitled to maintenancy.

tenance from the public granaries.

provision created by the foresight of Joseph was so considerable, that he could not only feed the entire people of Lower Egypt during the

The

whole time of the famine, but was able to sell corn to the inhabitants of It was the neighbouring countries where the famine made itself felt. At sent by Jacob into Egypt to buy food. then that his brothers came, known to them, forgave them, and their second visit, he made himself In this he only put in invited all his family to reside in Egypt. practice the common policy of the Pharaohs, which had always been to attract the tribes of Palestine and Syria as colonists, into the land of Delta, in order that a scientific system of agiiculture might gradually and laboriously reclaim the marsh land. And this policy, which had
been that of the indigenous sovereigns, was to a still greater degree that of the Shepherd Kings, whose gi'eatest interest was to establish in their states a non-Egyptian element, to assure themselves of support against
a national reaction. 4. Jacob, with all that were
his,

accepted the invitation of Joseph.

He was then 130 years old. Pharaoh received them with favour, and established them in the land of Goshen, which we believe to have been the territory around the present city of Belbeis, on the frontier line of
the Delta and the desert,
Cairo.

N.N.E.

of Memphis, and of the

modern

city

of

There Jacob died, seventeen death-bed he blessed his sons, and declared that the inheritance of the
Divine promises to the race of Abraham, and the position of head of the

years after his settlement.

On

his

OPPRESSION OF THE ISRAELITES.

family should
fall to

91

Judah, to the exclusion of his three elder brothers, Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, who had proved themselves unworthy of it by their crimes. His body, embalmed in the Egyptian mamier, was conveyed to the toml) of Abraham, at Hebron. Joseph hved on for
half a century, and always remained the active protector of the Israelite
years, and colony. He, at last, in his turn, died at the age of before his death, took an oath of such of his brethren as sui-\-ived him, that his embalmed body should be carried up into the land of Canaan

no

when

the children of Israel

left

Egypt.

Section IV.
I.

The

Israelites in Egypt,

and the Exodus.

remained 430 years in the fertile land of Goshen, and there multiphed exceedingly. They fonned a small nation, separated from the Egyptians by their manners, their religious worship, their The Bible is silent on language, and their patriarchal government.
brethren, but

The Hebrews

the period, following immediately on the death of Joseph and his it is certain that the Hebrews remained isolated from the

Their business as shepherds, their nomadic habits, held in Egyptians. scorn by the native-bom Egyptian population, had fixed between the

two peoples an insunnountable barrier. The

in truth, preserved in
its

patriarchal worship

was

not,

primitive purity, but the idolatrous worship of

the Egyptians was too

much opposed to the traditions of the Israelites among the latter people. The children of Israel to permit its preserved a remembrance of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
spread

Subject Jacob, though they had but a very confused idea of that God. nevertheless governed by their own to the kings of Egypt, they were The tribes were divided into families, each of which had proper chiefs.
its

"Zaken" (Exodus

iii.

18), or

Sheikh; and these heads of famihes were

under the orders of the superior chiefs of their respective tribes, called With these were also other officers bearing the in Egyptian "Hak." title of " Shoterim" (Exodus v. 14), or Scribes, who, although chosen from
the race of Israel, represented among them the authority of the Egyptian government, and were personally responsible for the collection of the imposts laid on the
2.

Hebrew
life

colony.

Nevertheless, the

of the Israelites in Egypt was far from being

at all times as

place in the country,

as it had been at first. Great revolutions had taken which we shall relate in detail when we come to treat of Egypt. The stranger kings had been driven out of Lower Egj^pt; the unity of the country and its full independence had been re-estaa native dynasty, a glorious dynasty, warlike and victorious, blished had mounted the throne. These kings appear to have left tlie IIel)rews It even seems that the in peace, and even to have favoured them.

happy

92
children

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

of Israel were concerned on several occasions in
the early

Asiatic campaigns of that dynasty, and

had taken advantage of that

is

circumstance to attempt to
their race

attempts which
off,

make

settlements in the land promised to

failed.

Thus mention
slew them
(i

made

of an expedi-

tion of the sons of

Ephraim
but

against the people of Oath,

whose
vii. (i

cattle

they tried to drive

Lastly,

who

Chron.

21).

A
iv.

daughter of Ephraim built several

vii.

cities in

the land of -Canaan

Chron.

24).

it

is

mentioned, that the family of Shelah, son of

territoiy of

Judah,
21, 22).

had made conquests on the

in
it

Moab

(i

Chron.

But some time afterwards,

as

consequence of disturbances,
is

which,

were not quite free from Israelitish influence,* another new dynasty, that which counts in Egyptian history as the Nineteenth, came into power. Another king," says Scripture, " arose, who knew not Joseph." The services he had rendered were forgotten the sons of Jacob, regarded as dangerous because of their number and their origin, were exposed to the most unjust and cruel persecutions. The Pharaoh, who commenced to persecute them with the view of reducing their power, was called Ramses, as we know from documents of Egyptian origin. He was a warlike prince, and at the same time an implacable despot and tyrant. He overburdened the Israelites with work, and employed them under taskIt was the masters in all the rough operations of the building of cities. custom of the kings of Egypt to employ prisoners of war in forced labour of this kind ; paintings in many Egyptian tombs represent scenes where prisoners of Semitic race are seen making bricks and building walls, under the eye of the Egyptian superintendents, armed with long whips scenes which may serve to illustrate the story of the Bible as to the
shall

we

see

further on,

possible

'

'

servitude of the Israelites.

hieroglyphic inscription, dated in the

populations thus employed on public and mentions amongst them the Aberiou, or Hebrews. They works, built in their servitude two cities to the east of the Delta, Pithom and Raamses, the last so-called after the name of the king, cities which are Pharaoh had both frequently mentioned in the Egyptian monuments. hoped to crush the Israelites by force of bad treatment. Seeing, on the contrary, that their number went on always increasing, he ordered all the male infants that were born to be thrown into the Nile. 3. It was at this time that Moses came into the world ; he was the son of Amram and Jochebed, both of the tribe of Levi, who had already had two children, a son named Aaron and a daughter named Miriam. His mother hid him three months. At last, no longer able to conceal his existence, she exposed him on the bank of the river in an ark, covered
reign of Ramses, enumerates the
* See

Book

III., ch.

iii.,

sec. 2-5.

MOSES IN ARABIA.

93

with bitumen and pitch. The daughter of Pharaoh, whom the historian Josephus calls Thermouthis (in Egyptian T-ouer-maut, " the great mjther "), going down to bathe, saw the ark and rescued the child, for whom Jochebed offered herself as nurse. She gave him the name of
Afterwards, when him back to the princess, who the child was grown, the mother brought Holy Scripture says nothing about caused him to be educated at court. but we may, with a certain the youth of Moses and his education amount of confidence, receive the Jewish tradition related by Josephus

Moses, which means

"drawn

out of the water."

(Jos.

Ant.

II.,

i.\.

5).

According

to that tradition, the princess caused

she had saved from the Nile, to be educated by the priests in all the science of the Egyptians, and she was also compelled to protect him from the plots of the sacerdotal caste, and from the diviners

the child,

whom

who
arts,

child.

predicted to the king that Egypt would have reason to dread that He was, also, according to the same authority, taught warlike

and held an important command in an expedition to Ethiopia. court did not prevent Moses, on 4. The favour he enjoyed at feeling sensibly the oppression of his countryreaching manhood, from men he often went among them to console them. One day, in his indignation, he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. Threatened with the consequence of this deed, he fled into Arabia Petrffia. Whilst he was there, wandering as a fugitive, he once, finding himself in the \dcinity of a Midianitish tribe, had occasion to defend the seven daughters of Jethro, chief and priest of the tribe, who had come
;

to water their father's flocks, from the violence of the shepherds

who

Jethro having learned from wished to drive them away from the well. his daughters the generous conduct of Moses, invited him to his home, Moses consented to live with Jethro, who and offered him hospitality. Moses passed many years gave him as a wdfe his daughter Zipporah. During that Midianites, leading the life of a shepherd. among the in the situation of his brethren in Egypt. time no change had occurred Another king, who the monuments tell us was named Merenphtah, had mounted the throne, but he continued, with regard to the Hebrews, In solitude by his flocks and the iniquitous system of his predecessor.

herds Moses could meditate on the lot of the Israelites ; patriarchal traditions filled his mind, and the thought of Jehovah, the God of his

was ever present with him. day, when he had wandered near Mount Horeb, he saw a bush which was on fire, and was not consumed. Not being able to account for this wonder, he turned aside to examine it more closely, but he heard a voice from the midst of the bush which told him that he We constood on ground sanctified by the presence of God himself.
fathers,
5.

One

sider the facts of Sacred History here only in a purely and exclusively
historical

aspect

and, therefore, do not insert the sublime dialogue

9+

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

which the Bible gives between Moses and the Lord. All the sentiments of the future liberator, his faith in God, his distrust of his own abilities, his hesitation, are depicted in this dialogue in which God, to use the expression of Bossuet, " made himself more fully known to
this great

man than he ever had before to any human being." God commanded Moses to return to Egypt, and revealed to him that he had been chosen to deliver his people from slavery, and to make them know the God of their fathers anew as the Absolute Being " I AM THAT I AM," such is the name under which God was pleased to cause Himself to be announced to His people, in making Himself known as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.

6. Moses then rejoined his brother Aaron, whose assistance he had been promised by the Divine voice in the burning bush, and who, more eloquent than himself, was to be the interpreter of inspirations from on high, to the Hebrews and to the king of Egypt. They returned at once to Egj'pt, and after having assembled the chiefs of the tribes of Israel, to encourage them and ensure their obedience, they presented themselves before Pharaoh. Although they had only demanded for their countrymen leave to go and sacrifice in the desert, their request was contemptuously refused, and far from permitting the least relaxation to the people of Israel, the labours imposed on them were increased. Then God, by the ministry of Moses and Aaron, inflicted on the country the various scourges so well known by the name of the plagues of Egypt. The evils which then were sent to afflict the valley of the Nile and terrify the Egyptians are thus enumerated in the Bible 1st. The waters of the Nile became red like blood, and the river stank, so that the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink. 2nd. Frogs multiplied so as to cover all the land, and to become an insupportable nuisance to the people. 3rd. Clouds of lice tormented both men and beasts. 4th. .Swarms of noxious insects infested the houses and 5th. An epizootic disease carried fields, and damaged the harvests. 6th. Boils broke out on the bodies off the greater part of the cattle. 7th. A terrible hailstorm, accompanied by both of man and beast. lightning and thunder, ravaged the country. 8th. Clouds of locusts came up and devoured all that the hail had left. 9th. Thick darkness, produced possibly by clouds of sand which the wind brought from the desert, covered the whole of Egypt. loth. A sudden epidemic carried These plagues, it must be remarked, off the first-born of each family. are such as from time to time occur in the climate of Egypt. What made them miraculous was their extraordinary violence, and that they
:

More than once the king, touched with repentance or fear, entreated the two brothers to obtain from God the cessation of these disasters ; but no sooner had the plague ceased, than the hardness of his heart returned.
followed each other with such rapidity at the call of Moses.

THE EXODUS.
At
last, tlie

95

own

son,

death of the first-bom throughout his kingdom, and of his broke his resolution, and he allowed Israel to go. On the

night of their departure, Moses instituted, in

feast of the

memory

of that event, the

Hebrews amounted then to 600,000 adult men, without counting women and children. They all set out under
Passover
;

the

the leadership of Moses.

gaining the banks of the

Their march was necessarily very slow, they were three days in Red Sea, by a route and by stations which are Pharaoh, changing his mind, and ditlficult now to determine precisely.
7.

which he had given them to depart, pursued He 600 war chariots, and a great mass of infantiy. after them with The Hebrews had before them on the sea shore. overtook them on the east the sea, to the right and left inaccessible mountains, and behind them they saw the Egj'ptian army. Without miraculous assistance Already they had abandoned themselves to despair, they w-ere lost. when Moses promised them, on behalf of the Almighty, a wonderful When night came on, Moses stretched out his hand over deliverance. the sea, a \-iolent tempest from the east began to blow, separated the waters of the gulf at the place where the Israelites were encamped, and opened a passage in the midst of the waters, which were rolled back on
regretting the permission

The Hebrews at once entered the road thus miraculously each side. opened, and the whole night was occupied in the passage, which took The exact place probably in the neighbourhood of Mount Attaka. now impossible to identify, but as the Red Sea at this period spot it is
probably extended

many

miles north of the present head of the Gulf of

Suez (the tongue of the Egyptian Sea (Is. xi. 15), which has been dried up), and was much narrower to the north than to the south of Suez, the balance of probability seems in favour of Israel having crossed the
sea at this narrower part.

The Egyptians ventured

gulf,
roll,

to follow the fugitives into the

bed of the

with their chariots and horses, but the chariot wheels could not and the advance was very difficult. When morning appeared,
his

Moses again extended

hand over the

sea.

At once the

east

wind

ceased to blow, and the "sea returned to his strength," and cut off the retreat of the Egyptian army, which was swallowed up by the waves.
generally added that Pharaoh perished in the waters with his army, but this is one of those interpretations, one of those developIt
is

The Sacred ments, which are too often added to the Bible storJ^ of its expressions justify, Volume says nothing of the kind nor do any
;

or give any ground

;

for,

such an assertion.

The army,

no^ the king,

was

engulfed and, in fact, we shall see in the chapter on the History of Egypt that the Pharaoh Merenphtah survived this disaster, and died in
his bed.


96

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Section V.

The

Israelites at Sinai.

It was not without deep consideration and mature reflection that 1. Moses had conducted the Israelites towards the Red Sea and the Peninsula of Sinai. The shortest and easiest route from Egypt to the land of Canaan was northward along the coast of the Mediterranean, and past Rhinocorura (El Arish) to Gaza. But this road was throughout its whole extent guarded by strong fortresses, gairisoned by Egyptian troops, who could have opposed the passage of the Hebrews (Ex. xiii. The army of Pharaoh, accustomed to use that road on its expe17). ditions into Asia, would easily have overtaken them, and as undoubtedly have cut them to pieces. Moreover, it would have been imprudent in
the highest degree to bring the people of Israel, debased by long con-

tinued slavery, and with no practice in the use of arms, directly into
collision with the warlike Canaanitish nations, who, if the war had been prolonged, could have called for the powerful assistance of the King of Egypt, at that time their sovereign. Moreover, before entering into possession of the Promised Land, and fonning an independent state, it was absolutely necessary for the Hebrews to serve an apprenticeTo become worthy of its high ship, and to be regenerated in solitude. destinies, it was irecessary for the nation to be kept separate for some time in the desert, far away from the Pagan populations, in the midst of whom it had so long lived and, above all, from the vices of cities. In this way only could faith in the God of their fathers, so long forgotten in this slavery, be re-awakened among them. It was only in this way that it was possible for Moses to form a new people, obedient to the Divine will, to give them laws, to subject them to discipline, and to put them in a condition, not only to conquer the land which the Lord had promised them, but to establish themselves there, so as to be able to fulfil the sublime destiny to which Providence had called them. Such were the reasons which decided Moses, guided by Divine inspiration, to lead the
;

children of Israel into the desert of Sinai; to avoid, as

much

as possible,

any rencontre with

necessary for
tion of the nation

keep them there as long as was the establishment of the law and the complete organisahostile nations
;

to

frontier of Palestine,
2.

The

enterprise

them to the south-eastern which was not covered by Egyptian fortresses. offered, moreover, enoimous difficulties and the
and, finally,
to lead
;

constant and direct aid of Providence could alone ensure

its

success.

have already stated what was the number of the Hebrews at the But they were not alone the Bible tells us that time of the Exodus. These were, to all a mixed multitude of people had followed them. appearance, people of tribes foreign to the Egyptian race, who also
;

We

THE ISRAELITES

IN

THE DESERT.

97

being oppressed, had seized this opportunity to free themselves from We cannot therefore estimate below three millions the servitude. number of individuals who followed Moses. This immense multitude

found

itself,

with numerous flocks and herds, in a desert which barely

little

afforded a scanty pasturage and

who wandered

there.

From

the very

first,

water to the few Arab tribes God began to provide for the

subsistence of His people,

by causing Moses to sweeten tlie bitter water of Marah, a station which seems to correspond to the situation of Howara, a short distance south of the place where the Israelites passedthe sea

place wliere the

water to

tliis

very day

is

unfit to drinl<

on account of its bitterness. Afterwards, when they had left the fountains of Elim to cross the desert of Sin, in the neighbourhood of Rephidim, near Mount Horeb, God sent a flight of quails, of which the people ate too greedily; and he made water to come out of a rock
in the valley,

now

called

Wady

Mokatteb, a miracle which,

at

a later

time, was repeated to save the people from certain death.

was then also that God began to shower down manna, which furnished the Hebrews with food during the forty years they were detained Manna fell every in the desert as a punishment for their want of faith. morning in the camp. Every one collected quickly (for it melted with the first rays of the sun) the quantity required for the day's consumpNeverthetion, but not more, for by the ne.xt day it became putrid. less, on the eve of the Sabbath, enough for two days might be gathered
It

without fear of

its

spoiling,

order that they might scrupulously

observe the day consecrated to the Lord. must seek for the desert of Sin has even

The country in which we now many tamarisk shrubs,

from the branches of which a resinous substance exudes when jjunclurcd by an insect. This the Arabs of the country eat, instead of honey, with bread; and modern writers have named this "manna." Several travellers have also found a species of manna which seems to fall from this is the the sky, and attaches itself to stones, bushes, and shrubs vegetable mamia carried about by the wind. May we suppose this to be the substance which fed the Hebrews ? In any case, the natural
;

facts observed
tive
;

by

travellers are insufficient to

is

explain the Bible narra-

for this

manna

only fomid in the Sinaitic peninsula, and only

;

during the montiis of June and July

the

whilst, according to the liible,

article of

Hebrews gathered what was their principal day for forty years, and over the whole of their and Gilgal. Moreover, the quantity is very far
suffice to feed so great

food every

route, as far as Edrei

short of

what would

a multitude of men.
still

The Hebrews were

by the

at

Rephidim when they were attacked

Amalekites, one of the most ancient and powerful tribes of

Arabia Proper, wiio were descended from Aram, and who have been mentioned in the story of the conquests of Chedorlaomer. God gave
11


98

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

who were
Land.
led to battle

the victory to the Israelites,

by Joshua, the

future conqueror of the Promised

HavinT

left

Rephidim, the children of Israel arrived, the third

month after their departure from Egypt, at Mount Sinai, where God gave them the Law, announced by the roar of thunder, by lightning, and clouds and smoke which covered the mountain. He promulgated first the fundamental duties of man towards God, his neighbour, and himself; that which Ave call the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. To these were added very many precepts more in detail, and the people
promised to obey the

Law

of the Lord.

But when Moses had returned to Sinai, where he was lost to sight enveloped in a cloud, and where he remained forty days and forty nights, receiving the commands which God gave him for the celebration of His worship, the ignorant and fickle people of Israel had not patience to submit to this first and easy proof of their fidelity to the supreme law which was al^out to be their national institution, the fundamental princi])le of their constitution. During the short absence of the prophet they forgot both the majesty of God, who had deliThey said to vered them from slavery, and their own covenant. Aaron made us gods, which shall go before us." Aaron, "Make worship of Apis them a golden calf, in imitation of the Egyptian and the Israelites, when they saw it, said, "These be thy gods, O Aaron Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Moses built an altar, and offered victims to this abominable idol. interceded with the Lord, that this impious and faithless people should but, in the transport of his indignation, he threw not be annihilated down and broke on the ground the tables of stone on which God himself had written the Law. He cast the idol into the fire, and sent the tribe of Levi to fall on those rel:>els against the Divine Law the law of the nation itself, that God had miraculously freed, and almost, as it were, A great number fell by the sword. Other tables of stone created. were made by Moses, by the Lord's command, and the Ten Commandments were written on them afresh.
;

Section VI.
I.

The Law of Moses.*

We

to

Moses

cannot here explain in all its details the legislation dictated at various times by the Divine Word, and destined to teach
the essential principles of faith, laws and morality,

the

Hebrew people

the forms of worship, political and civil institutions, which were to them a separate people among the nations of the ancient world.
it is

make
But

at least

necessary to explain here, as briefly as possible,

its

funda-

mental principles and most essential provisions.

*

See MiCHAELis "Mosaisches Recht," Frankfort, 1775.

THE MOSAIC LAW.

The Mosaic Law

99

presents the spectacle, unique in the history of the

world, of a legislation which was complete from the origin of a nation,

In spite of frequent infractions, and subsisted for long ages. was always restored, even although in its very sublimity it was
direct

it

in
it

opposition

to

the

coarse

inclinations
it

of the people
Israelites

whom

governed.

He

alone could impose

on the

who

could say,

"I am

the

Lord thy God," and confirm the words by

forty years of

miracles.

Doubtless, there are in this code some things which do not

;

we find sanction bear the direct imprint of the Divine perfection given there to customs imperfect, or even to be regretted, which had
formerly existed
idolaters.

among a people who had come out from the midst of These the law partly tolerated (compare Matt. xix. 8 ;
confining itself to prescribing rules for restraining abuses.

Mark
for

x. 4),

But however far it may be from that evangelical perfection, reserved an epoch when the example of the Saviour and the institution of sacraments might give to the human race a moral power previously unknown, the Law of Moses yet surpasses, by the distance of heaven from earth, the
those
institutions of all ancient nations, without excepting

who

surpassed the

Hebrews

in

quickness of intellect or elevation

the supreme auviii.

of character.
2.

The fundamental

principle of

tliis

legislation
(i

is

thority of

God
the

over the people of Israel

literal

Sam.

7,
;

xii.

12).
all

He

was

in

sense of the

word

their

Sovereign

and

was subordinate to the of His own. The other powers weie instituted continual acknowledgment by God to administer affairs in accordance with His laws, but were
other authority, both in political and
civil affairs,

not ordinarily chosen

among
{Kx.

the priests, descendants of Aaron, nor

21

from the
worship.

tribe of Levi, consecrated to the various functions of public

Each

tribe

xviii.

27)

had

its

civil

authorities,

although certain causes were reserved for the supreme central tribunal but the unity of the nation was, above all, founded on unity
;

in faith

the

the Passover, or Feast of Unleavened Bread (commemorating the Exodus from Egypt), Pentecost (the Promulgation of the Law), and the P'east of Tabernacles, or Tents (the Sojourn in the The one tabernacle, where the solemn sacrifices were offered, Desert). and where was deposited the Ark, the symbol of the covenant made between God and His peoi)le, was equally the political and religious
:

and worship solemn feasts

on the mighty recollections recalled each year by

centre of the nation.

penal laws promulgated by Moses allowed neither extraordinary punishments nor torture, by which (miserable heritage of Roman
.V

The

law) modern nations, even as late as a century ago, endeavoured to force The confession from an accused person l>y the infliction of pain.

punishment of death could not be

inflicted

on the testimony of a single

loo
witness

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

;

(Numb. xxxv. 30 Deut. xvii. 6) ; and (contrary to the political custom of Asia), the pmiishment of a father did not entail that of the But idolatiy, whicli in these countries, as children (Deut. xxiv. 16). in every or nearly every other, was indissolubly connected with idolatry, which was both an affront to the frightful debauchery and also a formal attack on the con.stitution of the Divinity itself nation and on the essential condition of its unity, was punished with death (Deut. xiii. 9 xvii. 25). The same punishment was also decreed for divination (Lev. xx. 7), another form of idolatry, for incest and

unnatural crimes, for rebellion of a son against his father (Deut. xxi. 18, sea.), for stealing and selling as a slave a free man (Ex. xxi. 16;

woman. 7), and for infidelity in a betrothed or married Moreover, the influence of the almost barbarous manners and customs of the Israelites are veiy apparent in some of the penal laws. By the side of most equitable regulations as to theft and loss, there
Deut. xxiv.
are others of most implacable severity

such
(Ex.

applied to malicious or accidental

tooth,

wounding

" eye
xxi.

as the

law of retaliation
for eye, tooth for
;

hand

for hand,

foot for foot "

24

Lev.

xxiv.

20).

A terrible law, but one which possibly in its The murderer, on the same been commuted for a pecuniary fine. but here the ancient rule admitted principle, was punished with death of no composition ; even in the case of involuntary manslaughter however accidental was the cause of death, it must be revenged by a The relations of the victim were obliged, as a point of honour, death. Moses, to require this sanguinary expiation (Numb. xxxv. 1024). abolish this custom entirely, strove to find means of renunable to
administration

may have

dering

it

practically inoperative.

He

established cities of refuge.

the Promised Land,

Six

cities

were named

after

the conquest of

three on either

bank

of the Jordan, to receive those

;

who

fled to escape

approach

and these terrible reprisals to them, directions placed at the cross roads,

the situations of the towns, the facilities of

all

contributed

to facilitate the escape of the fugitive.

On

his arrival within the gate

of the protecting city, he

elders as to the death he

was required had caused.

to submit to the

judgment of

its

If declared guilty of murder,

he

was given up to the members of the family of the deceased, who, in If prosatisfying their vengeance, were only ministers of justice. he was admitted to the city, a dwelling was assigned nounced innocent
him, and land to cultivate for his subsistence. If he left the precinct, he was exposed to the revenge of the relations of the dead man, but within the precinct they could not strike him without being themselves guilty
of murder.

And

not only did the legislator impose these limits of

At the death place on family feuds, he also limited them as to time. of the high priest, the refugees could return home without fear of
future molestation.

THE MOSAIC LAW.

4.

loi

Imid was subject to conditions, restrictions whicli, in wisdom, must have often recalled to the Israelite the direct and special gift which God had given him, in employing his nation to chastise the corruption of the Canaanites, and giving him possession of their territories. Not only was the tenth part of the produce (Lev. xxvii. 26 34; Numb, xviii. 21), a sort of tax levied in

Property

in

their beneficent

the

name

of

God

himself as

Sovereign

of the

Hebrew

people,

set

apart for the support of the Levites,

all

who were

excluded by law from

share in the possession of the land, and had only certain cities set

town lands, but every seventh or and the natural produce without cultivation was shared with servants and strangers (Lev. xxv. i 7). The year of Jubilee too, that is the fiftieth year, or more correctl)', the
apart for

them with

a small extent of
rested,

Sabbatical year

the land

seventh Sabbatical

}'ear

(representing the

fiftieth,

including the year

from M'hich the calculation started, according to the usage of most ancient people), was to put each family again in possession of the inheritance that had been assigned to it at the time of the conquest
(Lev. xxv. 8

17).
;

an assignment
year of Jubilee

for the

so

Thus the sale of landed property could only be number of years which had to run to the next that improvidence, prodigality, or the bad conduct

of a father, could only temporarily injure the prospects of his family.

At
and
the

the end of a fixed term they recovered their former competence,

this

without injury to the rights of anyone.

Neither could the

father exercise the

power of

life

and death over

his children, as

among

Romans

(Deut. xxi. 1821).

5.

intent and

But the Sabbatical years and years of Jubilee had yet another still higher aim they restored liberty to all Hebrew slaves

among the Israelites was not in the was among the most polished of ancient European The Law of Moses punished with death the master v/ho murnations. dered his slave (Ex. xxi. 20), and freed, without any indemnity, the The rest of the Sabbath, slave wounded by his master (Ex. xxi. 26). him as much as to the free man. " That and of the feasts, belonged to thy man-servant and thy maid-servant," said the law, "may rest as well as thou ;" and it added this touching reason, " Remember that
(Lev. xxv. 40).
lot

The

of a slave

least like

what

it

thou wast a
xvi.

.servant in the land of

Egypt" (Deut.

v.

14,

15; xv. 15;

12

xxiv. 18, 22).

But

this servitude, thus lightened,

and which

could only arise from punishment for a crime, or for payment of a debt by the labour of a family otherwise insolvent this servitude could not

any case exist longer than six years, because on the seventh year, by which, it seems, we must understand the vSabbatical year (Deut. xv. 12 18), the Israelite slave recovered his liberty, unless he refused it
in

himself, in which case the servitude

It is

was prolonged

to the next Jubilee.

this

true that foreign slaves

were excluded from

beneficent


102

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

among
tlieir

arrangement, the Hebrews applying to them the laws whieh were in

force

own

nations (Ex.

xii.

by declaring himself a proselyte

embracing the Divine
fore,

by opening
The

44

Lev. xxv. 44, 46).

his eyes to the light

But and
an

Law

of Sinai, every stranger

was admitted

to

equality with the children of Israel.

slave of foreign birth, there-

found himself, by the mere fact of his conversion, entitled to the

benefit of all provisions

made

in favour

of those

Hebrews who had

fallen to the condition of slaves.

6.

loan by an Israelite to a foreigner might bear interest (Deut.

xxiii. 20),

the rate of which was not limited by law

the matter was,

commercial transaction. But loans between Israelites were to be made without interest (Ex. xxii. 25 ; Lev. xxv. 35 37), as people leading an agricultural life, each with his own little Now property would not borrow for speculation, but from necessity. to wish capital to produce interest when, far from being productive in the hands of the borrower, it was itself consumed for the wants of his family, would be to desire to make a living out of the property of the
in fact, considered as a

unfortunate, to

traffic in his
is

misfortune.

In such a case, interest, how-

ever small

its

amount,

detestable usuiy.

The pledge was

of delicate and affecting regulations (Deut. xxiv. 10

13, 17)

" When
if

the object

thou dost lend thy brother anything, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou
dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad to thee.

And

the

man
may

be poor, thou shalt not sleep with

deliver

his pledge.

In any case, thou shalt

him the pledge again when

the sun goeth down, that he

;

sleep in his

own

raiment and bless thee

rmto thee before the Lord thy

raiment to pledge."
7.

God

and it shaM be righteousness Thou, shalt not take a widow's

Israelites

"The

most perfect charity was also prescribed to the

towards strangers, contraiy to the customs of all other ancient people. The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you,' said the law, 'and thou shalt love him as thyself; for
'

ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.'

tithes, and, equally

with the

They had a share of the widow and orphan, had the right of gleanJewish
legislation

ing

right

formally established by law.

the poor
;

was

essentially partial to

it

forbade usury,

commanded alms-

and admitted the Whatever was abased and trodden down by the ancient world, was elevated by the Mosaic Law. In the society it founded, the foreigner was no longer an enemy the and woman, seated honourably by the side of slave was still a man the head of the family, was there treated with equal consideration. " ROBIOU.
giving, prescribed kindness even towards animals,

stranger to

the

Temple and

sacrifices.


CONSTRUCTION OF THE TABERNACLE.
Section VII.
1.

loi

The Tabernacle.

law once promulgated, Moses occupied himself in organising the external and visible worship of Jehovah, which it wa.s necessary to institute as quickly as possible, in order to retain in the faith a people
fond of outward pomps, and the more inclined, from that very love of He communicated his Divine ceremonies, to relapse into idolatry.
inspirations on this subject,

The

then to the whole nation

Temple, in whole nation. Aaron and his four sons were designated as the priests of tliis worship ; and the duty of assisting them in their functions was assigned to the entire tribe of Levi, as a recompense for the devotion they had On an appeal which Moses manifested for the cause of Divine unity. made to the generosity of the nation, materials metals, and other

first to Aaron and the chiefs of the tribes, he explained to them the plan of a portable which worsliip might for the future be performed for the
;

valuables necessary for the construction of the Tabernacle

(for so

it is

customary to
task,

call this

portable Temple), the altars, sacred vessels,

etc.,

were contributed in abundance. Numerous artificers undertook the under the direction of two artists, Bezaleel, of the tribe of Judah, and Aholiab, of that of Dan. The work advanced rapidly, and on the first day of the second year the Tabernacle was erected and consecrated.
2. It

resembled the veiy handsome tent of a nomadic

chief,

but the

hangings were backed by a frame- work of planks to make them firmer. The edifice was oblong, its longer sides running east and west, and was

composed of the Sanctuary proper,

of a large court surrounding
it

called
all

Mishcan
In

(habitation),
this court, in

and
the

on

sides.

open air, was the altar of sacrifices, of wood covered with bronze, on which the slain victims were burned, and the great basin of bronze, mounted on a pedestal of the same metal, in which the priests washed their hands and feet before approaching the altar or entering the
sanctuary.

The Sanctuary proper was

nificent stuffs

divided by an embroidered veil of mag-

into

two parts

the

Holy Wace, and

;

the

Holy of

Holies.

The Holy Place contained the sacred utensils the table of shew-bread, made of wood and covered with gold, on which were placed, every
sabbath day, twelve loaves of unleavened bread offered by the twelve tribes; the famous golden candlestick with seven branches; and, finally, the small portable altar of wood covered witli golden plates, on which I'he table of shew-bread and the seven-branched incense was burned.
candlestick are represented on the arch of Titus at Rome, among the trophies brought from Jerusalem after the capture of that city by the

I04

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

There
is

Romans.

also, in several

tation of a talkie of offerings,

Egyptian monuments, a represenfrom whicli it appears that the talile of

shew-bread was copied.

The Holy

of Holies, into which the

High

Priest

and Moses had

alone the right to enter, and that only on certain fixed days, contained
the symbol of the covenant nothing but the " Ark of the Covenant " made between God and His chosen people. It was of very durable wood covered with plates of gold. The description given in the Book of Exodus
is

very obscure and incomplete, but everything seems to

"show that the Ark was

made on

the model of the Naos, or portable

wooden
tained,

chapels, which the sanctuary of every Egyptian

Temple

con-

and which their bas-reliefs often represent. In the Naos, or Egyptian Arks, whose doors were always shut, was enclosed the image, hidden from profane eyes, of the Deity, to whom In the each was conseciated, and who was supposed to reside there. Ark of the Mosaic Tabernacle there was no image of that kind, for the

Law,

to avoid the clanger of idolatry, forbade the representation of

God

under any visible and material figure whatever. Moses had placed there the two stone tables of the Decalogue, as if they were the deed of the compact between God and the Israelites. The two emblematical figures which covered the Ark with their extended wings, and which the Bible calls Chentbim, must have been, from their name, which means bulls, and from some passages which attribute to them a human face and wings, related to those winged human-headed bulls whose gigantic images have been found at the doors of all the palaces of Assyria. An additional proof of this fact is found in the employment of the word Kinib, in veiy many Assyrian texts, to designate these winged bulls, and, in an extended sense, the gateways which they ornamented.

One

is

often

astonished at the magnificence of the

Tabernacle,

as it is described in the Book of Exodus; and, above all, at the amount of work in metal which had been executed for it. Such works cannot be produced by a nation of nomadic shepherds, wanderThey require perfect apparatus and fixed and ing about in tents.

extensive
to

establishments.

Anti-religious criticism

has

been quick

draw occasion from

this difficulty to tax the

Sacred Volume with

exaggeration and even with falsehood, and to say that the works of the But now these Tabernacle should be consigned to the domain of fable. specious objections fall before the progress of knowledge, and the tnithfulness of the Divine

Book

is

as clearly apparent in this as in

all its

other statements.

The most recent explorers of Arabia Petroea, the Count de Labord, M. Lepsius, and M. Lottin de Laval, have found in the mountain
range of Sinai, near the place where the Hebrews sojourned under the leading of Moses during the two yeaiis which were employed in the


THE
Avork on
tlie

105

SPIES SENT INTO CANAAN.

Tabernacle, in a place now called Wady Mogharah, copper mines worked by the Egyptians from the time of their important oldest dynasties ; and the ruins are still perfectly recognisable of vast
metallurgic factories w hich they had established there.
Inscriptions

abound
It

in these ruins.

seems, then, quite clear,

that the Israelites

when

at

Sinai,

and

wishing to manufacture the vessels required in their worship, took possession of the workshops of Wady Mogharah, and very probably

under the direction of the two there, no doubt, that Aaron made the golden calf, and that with the furnaces established by order of the Pharaohs, and the utensils belonging to them, Bezaleel and Aholiab cast the numerous golden and bronze articles for the furnish-

made

the Egyptian

workmen

assist,

overseers

named

in tlie

Bible.

It

was

inir

of the Tabernacle.

Section VIII.
1.

Sojourn in the Desert.

the Tabernacle was dedicated, a few days after the second Paschal anniversary of the Exodus from Egypt, Moses broke up the camp and recommenced the journey. He had chosen for his guide, in
tl:e

When

part of the desert

which remained to be traversed, and which he

did not

know

personally, his brother-in-law

at

Hobab
to

the Midianite,

who
and

had rejoined him

children.

Sinai,

and had brought

him

his wife

The

route taken

was

to the North, towards the Desert of

Paran and
of the

the southern frontier of Palestine.

But

at the

commencement
it

journey murmurs re-commenced.

was about the end of May) made a number of victims in that crowded mass of people soon the lowest of the people complained of want of nourishment, and began to regret the abundance they had enjoyed in Egypt. Numerous flocks of quails again arrived in the camp; the Hebrews fell on them

The heat

(for

with such avidity that they soon paid the penalty of their greediness They arrived at last at Kadesh Bamea, near the with their lives.
southern extremity of the
2.

Dead

Sea, in the Deserts of Paran."'

the land of Canaan,

Thence Moses sent twelve men, one from each tribe, to explore and to make a report on its inhabitants, on the cities they occupied and on the general aspect of the country.
Returning after forty days, they praised the fertility of the land of Canaan, but represented the conquest of it as an impossibility, on

settled.

true situation of Kadesh Bamea has not yet been definitely The most interesting supposition is that of Dean Stanley, who Kadesh Barnea was probably conjecturally identifies it with Petra.

The

the

En

Mishpat, sniitten by Chedorlaomer (Gen. xiv.

7).

Tr.

io6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

its

account of the strength of

established in well

inhabitants,

men
this

of gigantic stature, and

report discnuragement

fortified

towns.

At

seized

among
and
to

wh(j had been the explorers, attempted to calm the exasperation of the mob,

on the people.

In vain Joshua and Caleli,

overcome

their fears

by mqre favourable accounts.

to overturn completely the plans of Moses, and the people even spoke of electing another leader, to return to Egypt. Moses then perceived the impossibility of carrying out his

general revolt

threatened

.work with that generation so inured to slavery and incapable of heroic self-devotion. He severely reproached the people for their mistrust of God, who had manifested Himself to them by so many miracles, and

announced to them the Divine decree, which condemned all the men above twenty years old, except Caleb and Joshua, to die in the wilderness, and reserved the conquest of Canaan for the new generation. At the words of Moses, the Hebrews perceived the criminality of their conduct, and wished at once to march against the Canaanites, but the decree had been irrevocably pronounced. In spite of being forbidden by Moses, who refused to leave the camp, they attempted an attack the Israelites were repulsed with loss by the Canaanites and Amalekites who combined against them, and were compelled to resign themselves to a continuance of their nomadic life in the desert. The postponement for forty years of the entry into the Land of Promise was a Divine punishment for the want of faith of the Hebrews, and was so ordered by the wise disposal of Providence, as greatly to facilitate, from a merely human point of view, the conquest of the land of Canaan. Not only did it bring to the fight with the warlike people of Canaan a generation hardy, trained to war, and born in the enjoyment of liberty, in place of that which had been born and grown up in
slavery, but
it

time most favourable to success.

ensured the invasion taking place at the exact historical If the Hebrews had entered the land

of Canaan two years after the Exodus, they would have had to deal,

not with the Canaanites alone, but with the whole force of the Egyptian empire, at that time very strong, and master of all Palestine.

Forty years

later,

subject to kings

who

however, circumstances had changed. Egypt was did not trouble themselves about warlike matters,

and who allowed the Israelites and the Canaanites to fight as they would in Palestine, confining themselves to claiming a purely nominal suzerainty over the country, which neither the one nor the other cared
to contest.
3. During thirty-eight years, the Hebrews sadly resigned to their nomadic life traversed the Desert to which the Arabs have given the name of El Tyh, or Tyh Beni Israel (wanderings of the children of

Israel),

going from north to south as far as Eziongeber, on the Elanitic

Gulf, and returning thence northward to

Kadesh Barnea. Thev do not

DEATH OF AARON.

107

appear to liave been troul>led there by attacks of any kind. This long space of time passed away without any incidents sufhcienlly remaikable to deserve being handed down to posterity. At least the historical documents of the Tentateuch only relate one event of this period of any
importance

the

revolt

e.xcited

by the

Levite Korah,

the cause of

which is attributed to the privileges of the priesthood given to Aaron and his family. We know what was the Divine punishment that fell on Korah and his principal accomplices. The people having thought this chastisement too severe, God punished their murmurs by a pestilence which carried off very many victims. 4- At the commencement of the fortieth year after the Exodus, Aaron, the brother of Moses, died at Masera, in Mount Hor. He was then 123 years old, and the high priesthood was transmitted to his son Eleazar. The entry to the Promised Land was refused to him, as well as to Moses, by a Divine decree, because they had wavered in their faith when God had commanded them to speak to the rock in Kadesh to give water to His people. Mount Hor is on the frontier of the country then occupied by the Edomites, descendants of Esau, from whom Moses
requested a free passage, appealing to the
origin,

memory

of their

common

and to the

visible

marks of the Divine protection with which

God had

favoured the Israelites.

The

legislator,

in fact, feeling his

end approaching, wished to secure the completion of the work of his life, by himself conducting the people to the left bank of the Jordan, where the borders of Canaan were defended only by that river, which

was fordable

in

many

places.

In asking a passage across Idumsca, Moses had promised that the

Hebrews should not

stray

should pay even for the water that they drank. and thus the Hebrews, who were forbidden by
brethren, were obliged to turn

from the highway, and that the people The Edomites refused;

God

to fight against their

away to the

south-east, as far as the

of the Elanitic Gulf, and then again to turn to the north.

head Attacked
van-

on

their

march by the Canaanites of Arad, they were

at

first

quished, but afterwards gained a brilliant victory.

The Edomites

permitted them to defile past their territories without disturbing them.

God
ites,

also forbade the

descendants of Lot.

as the torrent

Hebrews to attack the Moabites and AmmonThey followed the skirt of the desert as far of Zared (now Wady Karak), and then came to that of
the frontier of the Moabites, and ot the Amorites,

Amon, which formed

a

Canaanitish nation.

The brook Amon

side,

runs into
;

the

Dead

Sea,

towards the middle of the eastern bank of that sea

and the brook

Zared also on the same

more

to the south.


loS

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST

Sfxtion IX.

Conquest of the Country East of the Jordan.

1. PEACEFUL embassy was then addressed by Moses to Sihon, king of the Amorites, to request a passage through the country, again promising not to stray from the road, and to do no damage. Sihon was a vic-

torious adventurer

who, a short time

before, putting himself at the

head of

the Canaanitish tribes which up to that time had been Hving about Engadi

on the west bank of the Dead Sea, had passed the Jordan, and fonned, at the expense of the Ammonites and Moabites between Arnon and Jabbok, a kingdom, with Heshbon for its capital. He had ravaged the whole countiy of Moab, and had even taken its capital by assault. A
great bas-relief on lava
execution,
in imitation of Egyptian work, but ruder in which was discovered by M. De Saulcy in the ruins of a triumphal monument of this prince near Arnon, in a place to which the Arabs still give the veiy significant name of Tell Schihan, Hill of Sihon has recently been brought to France by the Duke de Luynes, who has generously presented it to the Museum of the Louvre it represents the conqueror piercing a prostrate enemy with his lance. Puffed up beyond measure by his former successes, Sihon refused the request of the Israelites, assembled his troops, and advanced to the desert to fight with the people led by Moses. Completely conquered, the Amorites had all their cities taken, and their territory became the prize of the Hebrews.
;

After this

first

forces of Israel against the

avenge Sihon.

Moses, without losing a moment, directed the kingdom of Bashan, which took up arms to This kingdom, whose capitals were Ashteroth Karvictory,

naim, and Edrei, had also been founded at the expense of the Ammonites, who had been thrown back further east, towards Rabbath

Ammon

(in later

times Philadelphia), and of the southern provinces of

the AraniKan state of Damascus, by Amorite tribes under the leadership of an adventurer of enormous size and prodigious strength,

named

He was descended from the people of the Rephaim, who had Og. occupied part of Palestine before the arrival of the Canaanites, and whom tradition represents as giants. Og having set himself up as the he was conquered and adversary of Israel, shared the fate of Sihon By his defeat the Hebrews found themselves masters of the killed. left bank of the Jordan, from the Dead Sea to Mount Hermon, where
;

that

river

has

its

source

that

is,

of

all

the country called by

river).

the

Greeks in
2.

later times Peraea (the countiy

beyond the

victoi-ies, the people of Israel encamped on the had been taken by Sihon from the Moabites, opposite Jericho. Balak, king of Moab, was terrified at their presence, and allied himself

After these two

tract that


WAR WITH THE
for defence against

^HDIANITES.
109

Behoving them with the chiefs of the JMidianites. weak to attack the Hebrews, the alhes called in from the countiy of the Ammonites a famous diviner, named Balaam, to lay a curse on these redoubtable enemies, and devote them to an evil This scheme having failed of success, they invited the Hebrews end.
themselves, however, too
to the sacrifices of Baal Peor their god.

The immoral and voluptuous worship of that idol seduced a great Zimri, the chief of a family of the tribe of munber of Israelites. Simeon, dared to pass before Moses with the daughter of a Midianitish They were both slain on the spot by Phinehas, son of Eleazar prince. the high priest. Moses was obliged to show the most terrible severity; he A war of exordered the judges to punish all the guilty with death. Moses termination was at once commenced against the Midianites.
entrusted the
the enemy, and

command to made great

Phinehas,
slaughter.*

who

with 12,000 men attacked Phinehas did not take possesbooty.

sion of the Miclianite territory, he contented himself with devastating

the country, and returned to the

camp with an immense

;

They then took a

601,730

census of the families of Israel

the result

showed

men

fit

to

bear arms.

New

precepts were added to the law of

the Hebrews, and Joshua was designated by God as the successor of Moses ; but with the command to consult the high priest Eleazar as
to the designs
3.

he might wish
rich

to adopt.

The moment Reuben and Gad,

for crossing

the

river approached.

The

tribes of

and herds, and charmed with the which the country they had just conquered abundance of pasture Moses reafforded, begged Moses to allow them to settle there. proached them, for thus sowing discouragement among the people ; but these two tribes having promised to take part in the battles for the conquest of Canaan, without claiming any other part of the territory, The two tribes then established themthe legislator gave his consent.
in flocks * There may be a doubt whether Phinehas was in command. He was sent " with the holy instruments, and [even] the trumpets to blow in his hand " (Numb. xxxi. 6). "Critics are not agreed what these holy vessels or instruments were which Phinehas carried w-ith him to the war. Spencer contends that the Urim and Thummin are meant, while Geddes conjectures that the Ark and its appurtenances may be thus called. Le Clerk thinks the trumpets even.'' I only are meant, and that we should render the '(/'
^

most probable opinion." Boothroyd, B/'b. Ilcb. It would seem, also, that if Phinehas had been in command, Moses would have been wroth with him (Numb. xxxi. I4), and not with the

deem

this the

officers of the host.

Phinehas possibly went, as Hophni and Phinehas did (i Sam. iv. 4), only in charge of the sacred utensils, which none but a priest might
touch.

Tr.


no
selves

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

north.

between Anion nnd Jabbok, Reuben to the soulli and Gad to tlie One-half of the tribe of Manasseh, sprung from Joseph, obtained the same ]irivilege, and received for its share the territory of
Bashan.
4.

Finally,
;

Moses

fixed the limits of the territory whicli

was

to

be
ten

conquered
tribes,

he charged Joshua,
lot.

Eleazar, and the chiefs of the

to

watch over the partition of the lands which were to be

assigned by

He

directed that forty-eight cities in various districts

should be assigned to the Levites,

time, serve as an asylum for those

of which six should, at the

same

who had
new

accidently slain a man.

After having thus regidated in advance the

felt

work of

the conquest, he

the

necessity

of recalling to the

generation the miraculous

all that he himself had done to lay the foundation for the well-being of his people in ages to He addressed to the Israelites a series of discourses, in which come. he recalled the principal points of his legislation, with some modificaHe exhorted tions and alterations which time had rendered necessary. the Hebrews to piety and virtue, foretelling to them the misfortunes The document vvliicli neglect of the Divine Law would entail on them. containing the law was consigned to the Priests, with directions to read it to the people every seventh year at the feast of Taber-

preservation of the

Hebrews

in the desert,

and

nacles (Deut. xxxi. 10).

After having given his warnings afresh in a sublime song, which the

Hebrews were

to learn

by

heart,

Moses

installed

Joshua

in

power.

He

then gave his benediction to the tribes of Israel, and retired to Mount Nebo, whence he cast his eyes over the country which his people were
to conquer.

He

died on that mountain, at the age of 120 years

and

"no man,"

says Scripture,

"knoweth

of his sepulchre unto this day."

CHAPTER

11.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ISRAELITES IN THE PROMISED LAND. THE JUDGES.

The Bible, Books of Joshua Chief Authorities : of Samuel (called in the Septuagint and Vulgate josephus, Antiqtiities, Books V. and VI.
The
tiioderti

and
/.

Judges, I. Book Book of Ki>igs).

writers mentioned at the beginning of Chapter

I.

Section
1.

I.

Conquest of the Land of Cana.\n Joshua.

showed

When

the thirty days of mourning, by which the Israelites

their sorrow for the death of Moses, had expired

after their

going out of Egypt

Joshua

precisely forty years

at

tlie

head of the twelve


THE PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN.
tribes crossed the Jordan,

iii

whose waters opened of their own accord for and attacked Jericho, the walls of which, to follow the expressions of the Bible, fell down at the sound of the trumpets of The inhabitants of Ai (a city situated to the eastward, and Israel. near Bethel), drawn into an ambuscade, soon succumbed in their turn. Immediately after this double success, which gave them the keys of Canaan and proved their moral superiority, the Hebrews advanced to the heart of the country, to Shechem, which they seem to have carried without a blow. Joshua built on Mount Ebal, as a monument of the conquest, a great altar, on which was engraven a summary of the law of Moses.* In the meanwhile, the kings of the different Canaanite tribes began to recover from the stupor into which they had at first been thrown l)y the invasion. A general coalition was formed against the Heljrews. The Hittites of the south (for there were others much more powerful in the valley of the Orontes and at the foot of Mount Amanus, who remained indifferent to the events in Palestine), the Jebusites, the Amorites of this side Jordan, who inhabited the mountains, the Canaanites properly so called, who lived on the plains bordering the sea and the river, combined together to give them battle. 2. The Hivites of Cibeon having made a separate peace on veiy advantageous terms with the Israelites, Adonizedek, king of Jebus (which was afterwards Jerusalem), called to him the people of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon and these five nations, the
their passage,
;

strategy displayed in the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites considering it only as an ordinary historical event is Had Israel advanced on Palestine from the south, however victorious they might have been, they would only have driven before them an ever-increasing mass of enemies, who after each repulse would gain reinforcements, and could fall back on new fortifications and an untouched country, more and more difficult at each step. The Canaanites, if defeated on the heights of Hebron, would have held in succession those of JeiTJsalem and of Mount Ephraim; and it is unlikely that the invaders would ever have reached the district of Gilboa and In all probability Israel would have Tabor, or the Sea of Tiberias. been compelled to turn off to the low country the land of the Philistines and with tlie Canaanites on the vantage ground of the mountains of Judah and Ephraim, the nation would in its infancy have been trodden down by the march of the Egyptian and Assyrian armies, whose military road this was. By crossing Jordan, destroying Jericho, occupying the heights by a night march, and delivering the crushing lilow of the battle of Bethhoron, Joshua executed the favourite mamruvre of the greatest cajitains liy sea and land, down to the days of Nelson and Napoleon ; he broke through and defeated the centre of the enemy's line, and then stood in a position to strike with his whole force successively right and left. Tk.

The

under Joshua worth notice.


112

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlie

strongest in the southern part of

country, attacked the Gilieonite?;,

who

appealed for help to Joshua.

victory, in ^^'hich he annihilated the enemy's army.

of this

pushed on and gained a brilliant It is on the occasion victory that the Bible, quoting as it distinctly says a song from

He

a collection of ancient poetry, the Book of Jasher, uses the poetical expression of the sun standing still to give Israel time to destroy the
Canaanites.*
'

The

five

kings

made

prisoners at the battle of Beth-

horon were hanged. Immediately after the battle, the Hebrews took by storm the cities of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, and Deliir, whose inhabitants they exterminated and thus the south of Palestine was subjected to their power. 3. But a second and still more formidable coalition was formed, com;

and all the tribes of the and Hivites, from the foot of Mount North, Hittites, Hermon. It was under the direction of the most powerful prince of But God had resolved that part of the country, Jabin, King of Hazor. Joshua was once again to punish the crimes of the Canaanite nation. victorious in a battle delivered on the banks of the Lake Samochonitis (Merom), and pursued the enemy to the neighbourhood of Sidon, then The King of Hazor fell the chief of the Phoenician cities of the coast. into the hands of the Israelites, and was put to death, and a great An attack directed number of the cities of the north were taken. the Anakim of the southern extremity of the Promised Land against was attended Avith equal success. At last, after six or seven years of fierce battles, in which thirty-one of. the principal Canaanite cities were destroyed, Palestine was almost completely in the power of the Hebrews, from Baal Gad, at the foot of Hermon, to the mountains
prising the Canaanites of the east and west,
Perizzites,

which join those of

Seir,

that

is,

to the

Land

of

Edom.

* The miracles which accompanied the entry of the Israelites into Palestine seem such as might have been produced by volcanic agency. The bed of the Jordan was left dry for more than thirty miles. " The waters stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan " (Josh. iii. 16). " The expression that " is to be understood of the is beside Zaretan,'" says Dr. Lightfoot, That city is said to have been twelve miles waters, not of Adam."
. . .

'

from Zaretan.

The

fall

of the walls of Jericho

may most obviously have been

caused

by an earthquake. The stones which

ordinary hailstones
;

fell on the defeated Amorites, were volcanic not and the Talmudists believed that they were still

The passages are quoted at length in Dr. Lightfoot's to be seen. Hehraica:, etc. London, 1584. HorcE If it be admitted that these events were brought about by agencies in the ordinary course of nature, they are not in any way less miraculous, as they occurred at the exact time when required, to help the chosen people,
and even,
in

two

instances,

were promised

to

them beforehand.

Tr.


PARTITION OF THE LAND.
4.

113

Nevertheless the Caiiaanites were able to maintain themselves in very many places, and particularly in a great number of fortified towns. Joshua, already very aged, was convinced that the work of the conquest

could not be at once accomplished, and that he might consider his Instead of making fresh attempts which would mission as terminated.

have required great efforts, he preferred to consolidate his conquests and organise the internal affairs of the Hebrews, leaving to each tribe the task of reducing the remaining cities which were to belong
to

them.
It

was then that the two tribes who had obtained lands in Persa, and that the soil conquered on this side was parted among the others by twenty-one commissioners. In Jordan the south-east there remained independent, Gaza, Gath, Ashdod, that is, the five cities which soon after came into Ascalon, and Ekron the possession of the Philistines,* but which were at first, even at the time of the conquest, a refuge for the Anakim, driven from their mountains. The Jebusites retained Jerusalem in the territory which the tribe of Judah received, from the desert of Paran and the frontiers of
returned to occupy. them,
;

Edom,

the

large number still remained in the domains of Ephraim, and in lands which the half-tribes of Manasseh obtained on this side Jordan. The country which was thus given to the descendants of Joseph was

near Ekron.

Dead Sea and the mouth Of the Canaanites a

of the Jordan, to the Mediterranean

from the Jordan near Jericho, to the sea near Gaza. The land of Ephraim extended northwards, but was south of the portion of Manasseh. Higher to the east, Issachar, in whose territory were some up was Asher Manasseh, amongst others, Megiddo. Zebulon was plots given to established to the north of Issachar, between the part occupied by the
;

more to the Naphtali followed the Jordan from its source to the Lake of eastward, Simeon Gennesaret, and occupied the eastern bank of the lake itself. obtained some cities at first destined for Judah, and occupied the
tribe of

Asher and the

territory of Naphtali, but a little

extreme south-east of the Israelite territory on the frontier of the Philis-

The Philistines are mentioned in Gen. xxi. 32, in Abraham's time Gen. xxvi., in Isaac's time at the time of the Exodus, Ex. xiii. 17, and in Joshua xiii. 5. The Author regards the mention in these texts rather as geographical expressions, defining the territory by what afterwards became its best known name, and considers that the statement in the text is proved by the fact, that when Moses (Deut. vii. i) and Joshua (Josh. iii. 10) spoke to the Hebrews of the nations whom they were to fight against, and that the first arrival of the the Philistines were not mentioned Philistines on the coast of Palestine is conclusively proved to have Tr. occurred in the reign of the Egyptian king, Ramses HI.
*
in
;
;


114
tines,

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and had on the north the
tribe of

Dan.

As we have

already said,
the

the tribe of Levi had no share of

cities in

tlie territory,

but only certain isolated

the midst of various other tribes.

The Tabernacle and

Ark

of the Covenant, the central point of religious worship and of the nation
itself,

were established

at

Shiloh, a town of the territory assigned to

Ephraini, to which tribe Joshua belonged.

5. Believing himself near death, Joshua assembled the people at Shechem, and, in a discourse which the Bible has preserved, recalled to them all the benefits which Jehovah had conferred on the Hebrews.

exhorted the Israelites to the faithful observance of the laws of Moses, and to the continuance of war with the Canaanites, predicting great misfortunes for them, if they abandoned the worship of the true

He

God, and if they mixed themselves with the heathen, who were still very numerous in the country. The Hebrews promised to obey, and again renewed their covenant with Jehovah. Joshua prepared a record of it, which was written in the book of Moses moreover, he set up in
;

the place of the assembly a monumental stone, to serve as a witness

against the people,
if

they renounced their God.

Soon
Egypt.

after

Joshua died

He was

at the age of 1 10 years, 65 years after leaving buried in the inheritance at Timnath Serah, which the

people had assigned to him in recognition of his services, where a French traveller, M. Victor Guerin, has recently discovered his tomb,

He had been for twenty-five years the a vast excavation in the rock. supreme chief of the people of Israel. The High Priest, Eleazar, followed him quickly to the tomb, and was buried on a hill which belonged to his son Phinehas, in the mountains of Ephraim. This was
in the latter part of the fourteenth century before the Christian
era,

which

is

all

that can be said in the absence of precise chronological

statements. All the very positive dates which

up to this time have been attempted to be established for the Exodus, the passage of the Jordan, and the death of Joshua, are purely hypothetical and destitute of any
real value, to

which no wise historian

will

commit himself without some

fixed

and

solid basis for chronological calculation.

Section

II.

Period of Repose

First

Servitude

Commencement of the Judges.

While the elders lived, who had been contemporaries of Joshua, I and who had assisted in the conquest, the Hebrews maintained their respect for the law and for the worship of Jehovah. In conformity
.

with the

last injunctions

of Joshua,

some of the

tribes

recommenced

hostilities, either to

make new

conquests, or to re-conquer cities cap-

tured at the

first

invasion, but

which the Canaanites had been able

THE JUDGES.
again to occupy.

115

some whose precise position is unknown, Canaanite colonies near Bezek, a Ten thousand but which must be between Jerusalem and the Jordan. Adonibezek, had Canaanites were defeated near that city, whose king, his thumbs and great toes cut off, a punishment which by his own account he had inflicted on seventy kings.

Thus

the tribes of Judah and Simeon attacked

city

Jerusalem, it is true, they could not take from the Jebusites, but all the rest of the mountains of Judah were cleared of enemies, and they even possessed themselves for a time of the cities of Gaza, Ascalon, and

Bethel fell by treason into the hands of the Ephraimites. Nevertheless, the tribes wanted either the strength or the energy to

Ekron.

expel completely or to exterminate the Canaanites, as Moses had commanded. Joshua had committed a great fault in not naming his
successor

want of a head, the absence of union and concert in their It was especially the operations, paralysed the forces of the Hebrews. Ephraim, Asher, Zebulon, northern tribes, those of Dan, Manasseh, and Naphtali, that could not take all the cities which had been assigned to them, or were obliged to content themselves with imposing tribute on the Canaanites, permitting them still to live in the midst of Israel.
;

the

In general the coast cities successfully repulsed the efforts of the This Israelites, and remained in the hands of their ancient possessors. is the reason why the campaigns of the last great warrior king of Egypt, Ramses III., campaigns which took place at this time and touched only
the sea coast of Palestine, have no place in the history of the Hebrews.

is

In the Egyptian inscriptions which give accounts of these wars, there no reference to the children of Israel, and at the same time the Book
2.

of Judges makes no mention of the passage of the Egyptian armies.

messenger of the Divine

all

will

came

to

announce
ii.

to the

Hebrews

the fatal consequences of their weakness (Judg.

l).

The people

admitted the truth of

that

was

said

by the

could only answer the appeal by their tears.

man of God, but they The Canaanites became

more and more dangerous by their material force, which was not yet broken, still more by their religious worship so seductive to the senses, and also by their corrupt manners. The old men who had surrounded Joshua died off one by one; from the good old days of warlike spirit and religious enthusiasm there only survived the High Priest, Phinehas, whose aged arm could no longer avenge, as once it did, insults to the laws and name of Jehovah, and who was not capable of maintaining the political and religious unity of the tribes, and of preserving them
from anarchy.
Idolatry and the corruption of manners increased from day to day

common centre, the tribes became estranged from one another, and their mutual indifference threatened to grow into hostility. Two events recounted in the Book of Judges, and which we
with no head and no

Il6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

refer to

must

the epoch following the death of Joshua and his comshow how far, after so short a time, the sanguine anticipaThe one is tions of Moses and his successor had failed of realisation. that of the Levite, whom the people of the tribe of Dan took with them when they captured from the Canaanites the city of Laish, and called it Dan, and who, representing Jehovah by an idol, in defiance of the first

panions,

and most essential of the precepts of the decalogue, instituted in that

city a religious

worship to

rival that of

the Tabernacle at Shiloh.

The

other

is

the massacre of the tribe of Benjamin

by the other confederate

tribes, to

avenge the outrage committed on the wife of a Levite of

;

Mount Ephraim

the details of this last event present a miserable

picture of the barbarous manners of the period.

The infamous conduct

of the inhabitants of Gibeah

pieces,

the corpse of the Levite's wife cut in

provoke them to the war ; the slaughter of the Benjamites, wherein the innocent were confounded with and, finally, the expedition against Jabesh Gilead, and the the guilty massacre of its inhabitants, who had remained quiet during these events, in order to give their daughters to the survivors of the tribe of Benjamin, and thus enable the tribe torecover itself these all are actions unworthy of an organised community living under a regular government and

and

sent to all the tribes to

civilised laws.

related

Book of Judges (xxi. 25), after having there was no king in Israel two horrible incidents, did that which was right in his own eyes ;" all united politievery man no central authority cal life had in fact ceased with the life of Joshua any longer existed. The Israelites had no other government than the The tribe was divided into houses, the separate tribal authorities.
"In
those days," says the
these
'
'

house into
families.

families,

each comprising
its

many

individuals

each one of
of houses, of

these divisions had

own

chiefs, princes

of tribes,

tution besides the sacerdotal body,

would have been vain to seek for any national instiand this had no real and political Under such a system the bonds of nationality must soon power. have relaxed, and the tribes become estranged from each other. Two things only could and would have pi-eserved the unity of the people ; first, the unity of belief and worship, which brought all the tribes round
But
it

the Tabernacle of Shiloh

secondly, the danger of division

when

sur-

rounded on all sides by hostile nations. were not sufficiently strong for a people like the Hebrews, and we shall soon see how slight was the power they preserved. 3. Enjoying the sweets of peace, the Hebrews allied themselves with the Canaanites, and neglected more and more the national sanctuary at Shiloh, and soon they did not fear even to give themselves over to the worship of Baal, Ashtaroth, and all the Phoenician divinities. That patriotic feeling, which should always have been strengthened by

But these purely moral bonds


THE JUDGES.
religious unity

117

and the solemn assemblies of the Mosaic feasts, became weaker every day, and soon the tribes, isolated and without a head, were attacked either by neighbouring nations, or by the enemies whom they had the impmdence to tolerate in the interior of the country, and

who began
time,
it

to recover themselves
true,

and

to gain strength.

From

time to

is

an energetic

man
;

put himself at the head of certain

tribes, or even of the entire nation, to revive the national spirit and but he had not always the power nor throw off the foreign yoke even the will to revive religious feeling and the love of the Mosaic institutions, and after his death the people fell back again into anarchy. During many centuries there were continual vicissitudes of reverses and prosperity, of anarchy and absolute government but the instituThis period tions given to Israel at Sinai were no longer thought of.
;

is

usually termed that of the "Judges," a

word intended

as a translation

of the

Hebrew

title

given to those temporary liberators

magistrates of the nation, or

by

their exploits the first

who became more frequently

chosen, for
it

of a part only of the nation.

But the word

is

very

ill

in

no way gives an exact idea of the functions and powers of the men to whom it is applied. It would be much better to employ here the Hebrew word itself, and to name the so-called judges (whose authority was in no way judicial), the Suffetes of Israel ; for this name, Suffete, is set
apart in

Roman

history as the designation of the

title

first

magistrates of the

was the same- and their powers similar For our part this is the desigto those of these magistrates of Israel. nation to which we shall give the preference. 4. It was in the lifetime of the very generation which followed the conquest that we must place the first servitude of Israel, a punishment inflicted on them on account of the adoption by the majority of the people of the worship of the Canaanitish divinities. A king of Western Mesopotamia, named Chushan Rishathaim,* at that time extended his
Carthaginian Republic, whose

dominions from tlie west of the Euphrates to the frontiers of the land In the state in which the Hebrews then were they could of Canaan. not defend their independence, and became tributary to Chushan, who Moved by their prayers, the Lord oppressed them for eight years. raised up as a deliverer, Othniel, nephew of Caleb, who, by the defeat
of the stranger-s, gave his countrymen liberty, which they enjoyed forty
years.

This was the commencement of the alternations of servitude and

* Sir

H. Rawlinson

is

disposed to conjecture that Cushan-rish-athaim

name which has been a complete puzzle to etymologists is a corrupt reading of the name of an Assyrian king, which Sir H. Rawlinson reads Asshur-ris-ilim (.Vsshur is the head of the gods), and M.
Lenormant, Asshur-rish-ishi (Asshur
lifts

up

his head).

Tr.

Ii8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

deliverance which answered, during the whole period of the Judges, or

and return towards God. But and into inextricable difficulties, if we were to believe that the years of servitude and independence extended always to all the people of Israel. That is a point long since cleared up ; and if there are still difficulties left for science, it is only
Suffetes, to the alternations of infidelity

we

should

fall

into a great historical error,

when
see

she attempts to determine exactly the geographical limits of each

of these invasions and their relative dates.

As

for that of

Chushan,
it

no motive to Jordan, to which

not in any

limit
this

it,

as

some

critics

do, to the countries east ot

king would

first

have come.

Besides that,

will

way embarrass

the chronology to enter these eight years of

servitude and forty of repose in the general history of the

Jews

it is

not likely that a people, whose mission was to punish the adhesion of
the tribes of Israel to Phcenician
rites,

would have
this

"Western Palestine,
eastern tribes.
5.
all,

whence no

doubt

failed to invade worship spread to the

It is,

however, impossible to give a complete historical and, above

of Judges, which
is

chronological description of the epoch of the Judges, or Suffetes.

our only authority for this period, is not Everything in it is told in a discursive style, and the events are not placed in their proper order of succession'; It ihe author was far from being tied to an invariable order of time. fact, a collection of detached traditions of the republican period, is, in collected, probably, from ancient poems and popular legends, which
properly an historical book.
celebrated the glory of the heroes of the age. dates from the
first

The Book

This collection, which

finish the

days of the kingdom, appears to have been intended

above

all to

encourage the new government to

to exhibit

work coman

menced by Joshua, and

hereditary monarchy.
series of

to the people the advantages of

it

For

this

purpose

was

sufficient to

show by a
series

examples

how

great had been the disorders from which the

Hebrews

suffered before the foundation of the

kingdom

what a

of misfortunes had been occasioned by the forbearance of the Israelites

towards the Canaanites, and how even the temporary power of one person had invariably rescued them from total ruin.

no intention to state in exact chronological and the period of the supremacy of each Suffete. order the events Scholars who have attempted this, have given themselves infinite trouble without adequate result. Not only do the First Book of Samuel, and the First Book of Kings give two absolutely different computations There was,
therefore,
for the duration of the period of the Judges, but the historian Josephus,

three different

the faithful reporter of the traditions of the Synagogue, has as ways of reckoning the same interval of time.

many

as

And now

that the progress of

knowledge

in

the

domain of history

allows us to cherish the hope of being able soon to determine with


DEBORAH AND BARAK.
certainty,

119
precise date ot

by synchronism with the annals of Egypt, the

the Exodus, we are compelled to recognise the necessity of reducing the time which elapsed from the going out of Egypt to the establishment of the monarchy in Israel very much more than do any of the
calculations hitherto proposed.

Section
I.

III.

Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah.

of the Moabites,

Forty years after the first servitude, the invasion of Eglon, king took place, who, united with the Ammonites and

Amalekites, imposed his yoke on the unfaithful Israelites. It is evident that this great coalition did not confine itself to invading the territory The country of of the eastern tribes, neighbours of the Ammonites.

Moab was

to the south-east of the

Dead

that the Amalekites could most easily

it was from the south Promised Land. These reach the

Sea, and

nations must, consequently, have attacked the tribe of Judah moreover, the circumstances of the insurrection show that the

and,

enemy

was established even

in the heart of the country.

In

fact,

Ehud, son

of Gera, of the tribe of Benjamin, having, while presenting the tribute of his district, killed Eglon, called the people to arms, occupied the fords of Jordan, which formed the most direct road of communica-

between Central Palestine and the territory of Moab, and killed 10,000 Moabite soldiers who attempted to regain their country. But we must not apply to the whole of Palestine the twenty-four years of
tion

repose which were obtained by this exploit. 2. In fact, it is after this success of the Israelites that

Scripture

opposed to the Philistines in the south by Shamgar, son of Anath, at the head of a body of labourers, armed only with agricultural implements. About the same time, too, it tells us of a new servitude, which also must apply to a portion only of the country. The Canaanites of the north, formerly conquered by Joshua, had again
mentions the resistance

become very

strong,

and had retaken the greater part of the country

conquered by the Hebrews. As in the time of Joshua, they had at their head a king, named Jabin, who resided at Hazor, their principal city, the gigantic ramparts of which were some years since discovered by M. de Saulcy.* With 900 war-chariots and a numerous army, he oppressed the northern tribes, on whom he imposed his yoke for

His troops were commanded by Sisera, v.'ho liatl his head-quarters in a city, called Harosheth of the Gentiles. Barak, son of Abinoam, was called to arms by the Prophetess Deborah, who then administered justice and taught the precepts of the law to the people of her neighbourhood under a palm-grove, between Ramah
twenty years.
* Voyage autonr de la

Mer Morte et dans

les TerresBibliqties, vol.

ii.

I20

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim. He marched against the enemy, accompanied by the Prophetess, and completely defeated Sisera, who was assassinated during his flight by Jael, wife of a descendant of the brother-in-law of Moses. The famous song of Deborah and Barak, which the Bible has preserved, was composed in celebration of this The Hebrews then took the city of Harosheth, and next victory.
that of Hazor, and killed Jabin, the king.

The

Bible says distinctly

that it was only with the forces of Naphtali and Zebulon, with but 10,000 combatants, that Barak took the initiative in the war, and

gained the battle of the River Kishon. It follows, from the famous song of
Issachar, and of Ephraim.

Deborah, that the Hebrew

of

general received afterwards the help of Benjamin,

the tribe of

Reuben was divided

The tribes away to the south, were quite beyond these events. The land of Gilead, beyond Jordan, remained unmoved, and the maritime tribes of Dan and
refusing to take part in the war.

one part of its chiefs of Judah and Simeon, far

;

Asher, quite close to the theatre of war, did not leave their peaceful This is one of the most striking examples of the divisions occupations.

and of the timidity and apathy among the tribes, which, resulting from the relaxation of the common faith, were more than once fatal to the Hebrews. God often makes use of our vices themselves as instmments
of punishment.
3.

who had been

them another

Forty years of peace followed this struggle, but only for the tribes in the fight ; for the sins of the rest of Israel brought on
scourge, and they were given over for seven years to the

tyranny of the Midianites.

The Amalekites and Bedouin

tribes of the

East joined these people to make continual incursions into Palestine, overrunning the country from east to west, even to the neighbourhood
they encamped there with their cattle and their numerous camels ; they carried off the beasts of the Hebrews ; and, like clouds of locusts, they ravaged the country, destroyed the crops, and
of

Gaza

The Israelites were obliged to put their cattle and caused famine. the produce of their lands, for safety, into caves of the earth and into The people then were humbled, and implored the fortified cities. and God, by the voice of an angel, appealed to the assistance of God
;

faith

and courage of Gideon, son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh. He gave the signal of insurrection against the invaders, by overturning At the first the altar which had been erected to Baal in his village. movement, the Midianites and their allies took the field. news of this Gideon, calling to him the tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali, who had felt the devastation less than the others, and who,

consequently, were more in a state to

make

war, prepared for the

fight.

But
to the

God

number

did not will that His people should attribute the victory By His command, Gideon put aside 300 of combatants.

GIDEON.
men

121

only ; the rest were kept in the rear as an army of reser\'e. The chosen men, divitled into three bodies, surprised by night the camp 300 of the Midianites they were armed with trumpets, and with torches
;

enclosed in pitchers wliich they brol<e, crying out,

" The sword of the

and seeing an

Lord and of Gideon."

Israelite in

The enemy,

seized with panic,

everyone they met, turned their swords against each other.

;

of Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh pursued them the Ephraimites occupied the bank of Jordan Gideon pursued to the river those who had escaped, and the hostile amiy was exterminated. This
;

The men

was undoubtedly one of the most complete and decisive victories which the Hebrews ever gained for, from this day forward, history makes no more mention of the Midianites. Excesses, showing how
;

barbarous the manners of the Israelites still were, sullied this success. Gideon, with his own hand, killed the two captive chiefs of the enemy.

He also put to death by torture the elders of the two towns of Succoth and Penuel, who, fearing the vengeance of the Midianites, had refused
provisions to his troops.
4.

Gideon refused the

i-oyalty

which a part of the

Israelites offered

him, but he ruled for a long time over the tribes

to war.

who had
;

followed

him

The Book

of Judges says forty years

but this expression,

which

is found on every page, must not be taken literally, and has been proved merely to indicate an indeterminate space of time, corresponding approximately to the duration of a generation. Fidelity to the Divine

much shaken under the government of Gideon, who thought honour Jehovah by setting up an idol* to Him in his native place, disto appeared altogether after his death, and Baal was worshipped by the people of God. One of the sons of the conqueror of the Midianites, Abimelech, supported by the inhabitants of Shechem, recruited a band of outlaws, with whom he killed nearly all his brothers, and formed for himself a small kingdom in the country of Shechem, which he retained three years, and then perished in civil war while besieging the city of Thebez. A piece of a millstone, thrown by a woman's hand, struck him on the head and killed him. Tola, his cousin, was recognised Suffete of Israel during twenty-three years, and after him, Jair, the Gileadite, during twenty-two years. We know no particulars of their government but Scripture tells us that Israel, having given themselves over to the worship of the idols of Sidon, of Moab, of Amnion, and of the Philistines, God again gave them into the hand of their enemies. 5. The Ammonites invaded the territory of the tribes of Pera:a, and kept them under their authority for eighteen years. Thence, crossing the Jordan, they made occasional incursions into the land of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. The supplications of the sufferers were at
law, already
;

* See Gesenius Thesaurus, p. 135.


122
last

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

heard by the Lord, who was wilHng to help His people, and the war commenced. The inhabitants of Gilead, which was the capital of Pera;a, having no man among them capable of conducting warlike operations, addressed themselves to the chief of a band in the neighbourhood, named Jephthah. The position of a highway robber was not then more degrading in the eyes of the Hebrews than it is now-a-days in the opinion of the Arabs. He was recognised as general, and the negotiations which he attempted to open having failed, he gained great advantages over the Ammonites, and delivered the country. It was then that Jephthah, in fulfilment of his culpable and rash vow, sacrificed his own daughter. He had sworn to offer as a burnt offering, if he returned as conqueror, the first living being which he should meet at the door of his house. It was his only daughter who came to meet him with "timbrels and dances." Jephthah felt himself bound by his vow, and his daughter made no resistance. This was an impious sacrifice, and distinctly opposed to the law of Moses, which permitted the sacrifice only of certain animals, and utterly interdicted human sacrifices.* But such horrible immolations were common among the pagan populations who surrounded the Israelites, and the precepts of the law had fallen into complete oblivion. The Ephraimites, who had not taken part in the war, ashamed of their conduct, laid the blame on Jephthah they reproached him with not having called them to the battle. The quarrel became serious ; they came to blows about it with the inhabitants of Gilead, who made
;

great slaughter

among them. The Gileadites, having occupied the Fords of Jordan during several days, slew all the Ephraimites who attempted to cross in order to regain their own countiy, and whom they recognised by certain peculiarities in pronunciation. After six years of a stormy administration, Jephthah died, and was succeeded by Ibzan of Bethlehem, Elon of the tribe of Zebulon and lastly, Abdon of Pirathon, in Ephraim, whose governments embraced a space of about twenty-five years. But not one of these Suffetes extended his authority beyond the tribes of the north and of Perrea. Whilst they were govern;

ing those, other events,

much more

serious

and more important, were

passing
*

among

the tribes of the south and west.

That Jephthah really offered up his daughter as a burnt offering has been doubted, and from the tenor of the narrative itself, Jephthah's vow may be read as in the margin of our Bible, " Whatsoever cometh forth ... to meet me shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it
. .

up

for a burnt offering " (Judg. xi. 31).

The opinion of the Author that the sacrifice was consummated, is that of Josephus, of the Chaldee Paraphrast, who adds that if Jephthah had consulted the High Priest, his daughter might have been redeemed for a sum of money, and also of most of the fathers, some of whom even praise him for fulfilling his vow. Tr.


THE

I.

PHILISTINES.
Eli and Samuel.

123

Section IV.

fierce contest which commenced which was to bring on the Hebrews more extensive disasters than had been known in any previous epoch, but which in the end had the effect of reuniting all the tribes of Israel, and of reviving, together with the worship of Jehovah, the spirit of At this epoch of nationality and the love of their ancient institutions. their history, the Israelites found themselves suddenly brought into the presence of a new enemy, whom neither Moses nor Joshua appears to have foreseen, and wliom they do not mention in the enumeration of the dangers against which the people were to guard, but who entered on the scene with almost irresistible power, and threatened to annihilate the whole independence and the whole national life of the Hebrews. The Canaanites from this moment disappear almost entirely from the history of Palestine ; they no more menace Israel with oppression ; they have ceased to be a danger ; everything shows that their power was completely and finally broken, not so much by the last victory of Deborah and Barak, but by an external cause. The Philistines, this new enemy, first appeared in the south. In the whole Pentateuch, Moses never once named them among the populathey tion, whom the Hebrews should expel from the Promised Land were not spoken of under Joshua, nor when, just after his death, the tribe of Judah possessed itself temporarily of the cities of Gaza, Askelon

We

must now look

at

a long and

in the south of Palestine,

a contest

'

The first mention of the and Ekron, then held by the Anakim. Philistines which the Bible contains is on the occasion of the exploit of Shamgar but they do not seem at that time to have been very nothing then indicated the great ascendancy which they formidable were to attain in that period of the Hebrew annals, at the threshold of which we now are. It is chiefly in recent times, and l^y the aid of the Egyptian hieroglyphical documents, that the origin, the race, and early history of the Philistines have been definitely cleared up. But the achievements of science have been so considerable as to enable The Philistines us now to speak positively on these different subjects. had no connection in their origin with the other nations of Syria. They were neither of the race of Ham, like the Canaanites, nor of that of Shem, like the Israelites, but in reality of Japhetic origin. Closely related to the primitive colonies of Greece and the Archipelago, they also belonged to that great Pelasgic race which ruled for a time the whole basin of the Mediterranean, and their name, Philistin or Pilistin, contains the same essential elements as that of the Pelasgi.*
;
;

* The Pelasgic character of the Philistines was first established by HiTZiG, Urgeschichte imd Mythologie dcr Philister, Leipzig, 1845. Stark, Forsclmngen ziir Geschkhte und AlUrthiimskande der Helle-

nistischen Orients.

Jena, 1852.

124

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

evidences, both in sacred literature and in profane

A great number of
It

authors, concur in ])ointing out the island of Crete as having been their
original habitation, or at least their earliest

known

settlement.*

was thence that they came by sea to attack and occupy the country which from them received the name of Palestine. We shall see, in the Book of this Manual which treats of the history of Egypt, that the grand historical bas-reliefs of the palace of Medinet Habou at Thebes relate with precision all the vicissitudes of the furious and terrible war in which the Pharaoh Ramses III., some years after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, strove to repel their invasion. The Philistines were
then vanquished, but not completely
;

and, in exchange for their sub-

mission to his sceptre, the King of Egypt was obliged to agree to give

them

a territory on the coast

where they had landed.

;

This was the

nucleus -of their settlements and of their power.

They began humbly,

and such must still weak, and subject to the government of Egypt have been their situation at the time of their attempt on the southernmost tribes of Israel, which Shamgar does not seem to have had much difficulty in repulsing with some bands of peasants, assembled in haste, and imperfectly armed. But the rapid decay of the Egyptian power soon permitted the New immigrations Philistines to free themselves from all subjection.
from Crete strengthened them. They became masters of the five strong cities of Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath, and Ekron, which formed the Whilst the capitals of five principalities, united in a confederation.
Israelites
this

and Canaanites were exhausting themselves in continual wars, silently grew. A day came when they felt themselves sufficiently strong to aspire to dominion over the whole of the ancient They had a considerable fleet, and employed it in land of Canaan.

new power

the shameful practice of

Phoenician coast, where

pii-acy.

By

sea they assailed the cities of the

and national power of the Canaanites concentrated itself, when their strength in the interior had been had broken by Joshua. Such small Canaanitish principalities in the interior of the country as still remained were sustained only by the support of those maritime cities, which commerce had raised to unequalled opulence. In the year 1209 B.C., the Philistines took and reduced to ashes Sidon, the principal of the Phoenician cities, which was then supreme over all the others. + The disaster was so complete, that Phoenicia disappeared
all

the

life

* Tacitus expressly says that they came from Crete {Hist. v. 2). The Philistines are called Cherethites, that is, Cretans, in i Sam. xxx. 14, The geographer Stephen, of Ezekiel xxv. 16, and Zephaniah ii. 5. Byzantium, attributes the foundation of Gaza to the mythical Minos,

and, lastly, the great god of the personification of the Cretan power that city, Marnas, has always been identified with the Cretan Jupiter.
;

+ Justin,

xviii. 3.

SAMSON.
from histoiy
for half a century,
till

125

the time

when Tyre had become

It

sufficiently strong to reclaim the heritage

of Sidon.

was about the

same

time, after having annihilated in this

way

the Phoenician power,

that the Philistines attempted to subjugate the people of Israel.

2. When the Ammonites invaded Persea, and there established that dominion -which was destroyed by Jephthah, they were allied with the

Philistines,
tribes,

who

simultaneously entered the territory of the southern

and imposed on them their yoke, the heavier because the tyranny of this people was exercised with order and method, in conformity with When the northern and eastern wise and regular administi^ative laws. Ammonites, and enjoyed a motribes delivered themselves from the mentary repose under the government of the three Suffetes, successors
of Jephthah, the Philistines continued to oppress the southern provinces,

and every day

It is this

their

power there became consolidated and extended,

in

spite of the resistance of the Israelitish population.

popular resistance which the Book of Judges personifies in

the exploits of Samson, who, as the learned historian of the Philistines,

M.

Stark,* has well said, always played in the south of Palestine the

part of the people's defender, offering to the Israelites of these districts

a centre for national resistance, and of unity in a particular locality, but without succeeding in forming any real political establishment. The
particulars

Book of Judges as to his marriage with Timnath, the irregularities of his life, and, the lastly, the manner in which he perished, a victim to the treachery of a woman, are too precisely detailed to be open to suspicion. But the story of his exploits, as it is given in that book, is, in its character, entirely unlike the merely human histories of the other Judges. In it are combined all the legendary mythological tales which had long been The narrative is current among the people of Palestine and Syria. entirely allegorical and emblematic, with no real and positive character. It represents the form which such exploits had taken in the popular memory, in which Samson was made the impersonation of all the heroes lie, therefore, can find no place in of whom so many tales were told.
which are told
in the

Philistine

woman

at

a purely historical work such as ours. 3. Whilst these things were passing
been made
religion,

in the south, great efforts

had

in the north of the land of Israel to re-establish purity of

and

that national unity of wliich

it

was the safeguard.

A
had

priest of the line of Ithamar, youngest son of Aaron,

named

Eli,

usurped the high priesthood from the line of Plleazar, to whom that Mis usurpation function legitimately belonged by the choice of Moses, t

* Forschungen, p. 156 160. t There were only three high priests of the line of Eleazar between Phinehas and Eli. This furnishes abundant proof of the necessity of

126

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

might be pardoned, as he had restored the Tabernacle of Shiloh, abandoned for many generations, and which had fallen into the most deplorable state of dilapidation. By force of zeal and care he brought back the concoui-se of faithful worshippers to that only legal sanctuary
for the

6f the national

worship of the true God, instituted by Moses as the real centre life of the chosen people.
dead, Eli was elected Judge, or Suffete, by the tribes of who alone remained independent. Those of the

Abdon now

the north and east,

south and west, crushed under the weight of Philistine domination, looked up to him, and considered him their legitimate chief, though deprived of his authority by foreign tyranny. This combination of civil

and sacerdotal power

in the person of Eli this return of the Israelite people to the faith of their fathers, and to the ideas of unity should

have had most fortunate results. But Eli was not a man capable of at once saving religion and the state of re-uniting all Israel, and conducting them to victory. He had none of the genius necessary for so
magnificent a mission. Above all, towards the close of his life, the deplorable weakness of the high priest for his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, undid all the good which he had been able to accomplish,

and much aggravated the evils of the situation of the country. The sons of Eli profaned the sacred place, perverted the offerings made to the Lord, and caused all the people to murmur. The high priest contented himself with addressing to them mild remonstrances. In
vain a prophet announced to Eli that he should be punished for his weakness, that his family should lose the power which he had not known how to exercise, and that his two sons should perish. A child, inspired by God, repeated many times, but without effect, to the unfortunate father the evils hanging over him. This was the young Samuel, of the tribe of Levi, son of a woman of Ramah, who had been given in answer to the prayers of his mother, after long-continued barrenness, and had been brought up in the Tabernacle, where he assisted the high
priest at the sacrificial altar.

He

it

was

whom

Providence had chosen

to

fulfil,

at a later date, the mission of liberator.

4.

not long delayed.

The accomplishment of the oft-repeated prediction of Samuel was The Philistines, always ambitious, and resolved to
tribes.

get possession of the whole country, threatened the northern

reducing the usual calculation as to the length of the period of the Judges, or Suffetes. The most moderate of these calculations places three centuries between the death of Joshua and the accession of Eli to the high priesthood. It is impossible that such an interval could be filled by only three pontiffs, and the succession of high priests is the only element of positive and regular chronology which we have for this period of the history of Israel.

SAMUEL.
They
men.
assemljlecl

127
in

an army to attack them at Aphek,

the plain of

Esdraelon, where the

Hebrews were

defeated, with the loss of 4,000

Ark of the Covenant was brought into Hophni and Phinehas, to give courage

Then, as had not been done since the capture of Jericho, the the camp of Israel, borne by
to the warriors in the battle

which was to decide the national independence. But a fresh and yet more severe trial awaited the Hebrews. They were routed, with the loss of 30,000 men, on the field of battle the two sons of Eli perished in defending the sacred Ark, which fell into the hands of the Philistines. Eli, at this last news, seized with despair and stupor, fell from his seat, broke his neck, and died. In llie meanwhile the hand of God fell heavily on the Philistines, who had deposited the Ark as a trophy at Ashdod, in the temple of their god Dagon. An epidemic ravaged their towns, which they knew to be the punishment of this profanation and, after some hesitation, they decided on restoring to the Israelites the Ark, which was deposited first at Bethshemesh, one of the Levitical towns, and afterwards at Kirjath-jearim. But they did not, for all that, give up the power which their victory had given them over the conquered people. The battle fought near Aphek had thrown into their hands the entire territory of the northern tribes, which till then had been secure from them. The whole of Israel was subdued, deprived of independence, and grievously oppressed. But this very oppression prepared the way for their first deliverance, by making all Israel at last comprehend to what a condition the abandonment of the worship of the true God and of the precepts of the law had brought them, and by showing them that no safety was possible but in ranging themselves resolutely on the side
;
:

of Jehovah.
5.

preparing himself for the mission to which

tating on the
that the time

The servitude lasted twenty years, which Samuel passed in solitude, God called him, and medi-

means of accomplishing it. When at last he thought had come, he left his retreat to put himself at the head of his countrymen, and encourage them to re-conc]uer their independence. He first exhorted them to abandon idolatry of every kind, to adore only the God of Abraham and of Moses, who alone was able to deliver them from the yoke of the Philistines. Seeing the Hebrews sincerely disposed to submit to his guidance, and to fonn themselves into a compact body round the symbols of the only God, he convoked a general assembly at Mizpeh, on the territory of Gad, where they were not directly under
the eyes of the Philistines.

Then
Israel

the representatives of the different tribes confessed aloud that

in straying away from the worship of their God, and mark of penitence a fast-day was appointed. Then the assembly solemnly proclaimed Samuel as Suffete of Israel. The Philistines were

had sinned

as a


128

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

whom
they
to

enraged at this act of independence on the part of a nation

and took the field to chastise the rebels. But God terrified them by a storm, and the Israelites, attacking them at Mizpeh, overthrew them and put them to flight, killing a very Profiting immediately by this success, the Hebrews, by great number.
beheved
be
finally subjugated,

Samuel's advice, themselves took the offensive against the Philistines,

beat them in every encounter, and forced them to restore the towns

which they had taken, and to make a peace veiy advantageous for Israel, whose independence they were compelled to acknowledge, after having oppressed them during forty years. The treaty, nevertheless, left to the Philistines the right of maintaining an armed post at Gibeah,
and another clause provided that the Hebrews of the districts bordering on the Philistine frontier should be disarmed, so as not to be in a
position to
6.

make an

attack.

While Samuel governed, to use the Bible expression, " the Philistines came no more into the coasts of Israel, and the hand of the The Canaanitish colonies who Lord was against the Philistines."

among the tribes of the north, and whom the defeat of the Philishad delivered from servitude equally with the Hebrews, lived in peace among them, and maintained with them friendly and neighbourly
lived
tines
relations.

Everything tended then to favour the projects of Samuel,

who
in

could, from that time,

work

in tranquillity at the restoration of the

essentially spiritual

Mosaic law, and the re-establishment of

unity,

both

government and religion. He fixed his residence at Ramah, his native town but made year by year a round of visits to Bethel, to Gilgal near Jericho, and to Mizpeh, where he held assemblies of the people, and presided over councils on public affairs. The most important and the most fruitful of the institutions of Samuel, whose position was very similar to that of Moses, as he was both the spiritual and temporal chief of the people, though not invested with the High Priesthood,* was the institution of the " Schools of the Prophets."
;

This requires some explanation.

times,

The word prophet

in

(in
is

Hebrew, Nqbi)
applied some-

has in the Bible two entirely distinct meanings. and in its most general sense (adopted
language), to those

It

our ecclesiastical

men

inspired

by God, before whose eyes Divine

grace unfolded the future, that they might exhort the people to penitence,

and announce
with seer
(in

to the

take away the sins of the world.

world the coming of the Redeemer, who was to In this sense, prophet is synonymous
But more commonly
in

Hebrew, Roeh).

the Bible,

members of religious corporations, who, among the Israelites, played the same part as the preaching orders in the Roman Catholic Church corporaespecially in ancient times, this

word

is

the

title

of the

Samuel, like Moses, was not a

Priest.

Tr.


THE SCHOOLS OF THE PROPHETS.
tions

129

from among

whom

almost always the Seers came.

Such were the

by Samuel. " The experience of what had passed since the death of Joshua did not permit him to deceive himself as to the force and stability of a
institutions established

written law with no other guarantee than the consent of the people,

obtained by the force of circumstances, and without having at the head of the people men who could make the laws respected. He perceived, also, that the law of Moses needed to be developed and modified with the progress of the nation, notwithstanding that on the other

would be very dangerous tected by its sacred character.

it

hand

to

touch the letter of the law, pro-

Men, therefore, were needed to men In-eathe life and soul into the dead letter interpret this law, to and who could participate, so to who could enter into its true sense, speak, in the inspiration of the legislator; men, finally, who should
;

devote themselves to constant preaching,

their duty towards

who

should reproach the

set before

people fearlessly for their shortcomings, and constantly

them

God.

This was the aim of Samuel

in the organisa-

tion of the Schools of the Prophets.

" Far from the din of arms and the warrior's trumpet, the young
prophets sang the praises of Jehovah to the sweet sounds of the lute, the flute, and harp, or 'kinnor,' in a peaceful retreat; they prepared

on God, and on the true sense of them in several cities, tire law. the 'public assemblies were held, and which generally those where Samuel habitually visited. We find them at Ramah, where they occuthere their pied a quarter called Naioth (habitations) (i Sam. xix. 18) assembly was presided over by Samuel himself, and also at Bethel, These Schools of the Prophets were destined to Jericho, and Gilgal. exercise, as long as the Hebrew people remained independent, a great influence, and to rank among the powers of the State, representing the law in its true and peculiarly spiritual aspect, as opposed to the
their eloquent discourses in meditation

They occupied

quarters set apart for

Priests,

who were
as

frequently either too

much

attached to the
fall

rites of

material worship, or permitted themselves to

into remissness, and,

it

above

all,

was

their

opposed to the royal authority, whose encroachments dutv to withstand." Munk.


ISO

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

CHAPTER

III.

KINGDOM OF ISRAELSAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON.

Chief Attthoritics : The Bible, /. and II. Books ofSarituci, I. Book of Kings, I. and II. Books of Chronicles. ^Tosephus, Antiqicities, Books VII. and VIII.

The modern writers quoted at

the

commencement of Chapter

I.

Section

I.

Establishment of Royalty
(1097 1058,
B.C.)

Saul.

r. Samuel having become old, and feeling himself too feeble to support alone the entire weight of the administration, wished to share

his functions as

whom

supreme magistrate with his two sons, Joel and Abiah, he installed as Suffetes at Beersheba, at the southern extremity ot
But
his sons did not

walk in the ways of their father, and were made against their administration, for they allowed themselves to be guided by their persorfal interest and their cupidity, instead of exhibiting the integrity of Samuel, and nothing was found with them but corruption and injustice. The Elders of Israel, fearful for the future, met, and came to Samuel at Ramah, to ask him to give them a king. In vain the Lord expressed, by the mouth of His prophet, the anger which He felt at His people rejecting a constitution of which God himself was the author, a constitution which recognised God alone as
Palestine.

serious complaints

the Sovereign of Israel.

In vain He represented to the Hebrews, by Samuel, the abasement to which oriental nations are reduced under the dominion of an absolute master, who recognises neither personal liberty " He will take," said He, " your sons, and nor the rights of property.
appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen ; and some shall ran before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains
over thousands, and captains over
fifties
;

and

will set

them

to ear his

ground, and to reap his han'est, and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be
confectionaries, and to

your

fields,

be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take and your vineyards, and' your oliveyards, even the best of

them, and give them to his servants.

servants.

And he

will

take the tenth

of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his

And

and to his he will take your menservants, and your maidservants,

officers,

DEFEAT OF THE AMMONITES.

ami yourj^oodliest young men, and your
asses,

131

and put them to his and ye shall be his servants "(I Sam. viii. 17). The people would hear nothing. They required a king, like other nations, to rule them and lead them to war. God then chastised them, as He often does in His providence, by granting thfeir imprudent wish. Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, still quite a young man, and celebrated for his beauty, courage, and strength, was pointed out by Him, anointed by Samuel, and acknowledged by part of the Hebrews. 2. There had been, however, a numerous opposition to the establishment of royalty, so that it was considered prudent to defer for some time the solemn installation of Saul. But soon after this, Nahash, king of the Ammonites, threatened the city of Jabesh Gilead. When the news came to Saul, who still lived in his house at Gibeah, and was
worlc.

He

will

take

the tenth of your sheep

at

that time

driving a pair of oxen at

their

work, he killed

those

them in pieces, and sent messengers to all Israel to say to the people, " Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen." The whole people followed him. 300,000 Israelites passed in review 30,000 men were furnished by the tribe of Judah, for, in very short campaigns, a Icvec en masse was quite practicable. The enemy, attacked at break of day, was cut to pieces and entirely destroyed. Israel, carried away by enthusiasm, would have put to death those
animals, cut
;

who at first refused to recognise Saul. But he, with a moderation which did not always distinguish him, would not consent to stain his victory with such excesses. " There shall not a man," said he, " be put to death this day for to-day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel." His reign was then solemnly inaugurated at Gilgal by Samuel and the
:

people.
In resigning the power with which he had been hitherto invested, 3. Samuel by no means renounced all political influence he intended, on the contrary, to watch over the new sovereign, and to withdraw his pro;

moment the king ceased to be a faithful vassal to Jehovah and to his law. According to the ideas of Samuel, royalty was but a permanent and hereditary chieftainship, an especially military authority and all institutions were, in spite of this change, to remain as they had been before. For a time the new chief of the government continued subtection the
;

missive to the influence of the sanctuary, and Samuel continued to direct him in his administration. The prophet himselfhad dictated the

new
it

constitution, the conditions of

which were reduced

to writing,

and

deposited in the Tabernacle.

In conformity with the

spirit

of the law,

was only permitted to take up arms in the name of the Lord, whose of the Covenant was in the midst of the camp. The king himself would be no more than a captain always under arms, without court or

Ark


132

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

fixed residence

always

at

the orders of Jeliovali, wliose mouthpiece

Samuel remained. But Saul did not very long remain submissive to Samuel's orders he wished to be free from a tutelage which he began to feel irlcsome, and, above all, desired to usurp the functions of the priesthood which were united to the royal jjower in all the monarchies surrounding him in the After his solemn installation, Saul neighbouring Pagan nations. had sent the Israelites to their homes, keeping under arms only 3,000 men of the pennanent militia, of whom he had 2,000 with himself, the
;

other 1,000 being in the southeni provinces, with his son Jonathan. The latter being very brave, and animated with the most ardent and
patriotic zeal, found the presence of the military post of the Philistines
at

Gibeah, in the land of Benjamin, almost insupportable.

it.

One day

he surprised and took

The
field.

Philistines, to

revenge this insult, put an immense army into the Saul called the people to Gilgal for a levy which would enable

Samuel was to join him there to saciifice to the Lord before commencing the campaign. After waiting seven days, as he had not yet come, Saul, who saw that the people began to get impatient, thought the moment favourable for consummating his contem-

him

to repulse this invasion.

plated usurpation of the sacerdotal power.

He himself offered

sacrifice,

instead of waiting with confidence for the help of the Lord,

who had

so offen saved Israel.

Samuel arrived. Indignant at the which he saw, for it aimed at establishing the monarchy of Israel on the same basis as heathen kingdoms, and placing the spiritual at the mercy of the caprice of the political chief, by giving the latter power in the affairs of the sanctuary,

Soon

after

act of the king, all the significance of

the prophet reproached_ Saul severely for his contempt of the precepts of the law.*

Speaking in the name of the Lord, he announced to him that Divine help was withdrawn from him, that his dynasty should not last, and another royal house should be substituted for his. Saul nevertheless marched against his enemies, encamped at Michmash but he had not taken time to bring with him the northern tribes, and on his arrival among those of the south he found himself in a position of great em;

barrassment.

By an arrangement
Philistines

subsisting together with

Samuel's treaty, the

had for a long time forbidden among these tribes the trades of armourer and smith, so that the people were disarmed, or at least had only agricultural implements to fight with, and even for the repair of these they had to resort to the Philistines. So completely dispirited were

* See Numb. xvi. 40, bearing in mind that Samuel himself was only a Levite, not of the seed of Aaron. Tr.

ATTACK ON THE AMALEKITES.

they, that they furnished only 600

133

men

to the

king

for his

bold march.

Nevertheless, Jonathan, accompanied only by his armour-bearer, scaled

a post of the Philistines between

at this exploit, they,

as

Michmash and Gibeah. Panic-struck once did the Midianites, turned their arms
great

against each other.

The Hebrews,

numbers of

whom

had been

compelled by force to serve with the enemy, abandoned them to rejoin their countrymen, and those who were concealed in the mountains of

Ephraim

Saul soon found himself at the sallied out from their retreats. head of 10,000 men, and the enemy was pursued as far as Beth-aven. 4. The Philistines having re-entered their own country, Saul, during
the following years, continued his part as a military chieftain, repulsing

with equal success the aggressions of other neighbouring nations,

as the

sucli

Ammonites, Moabites, Idumeans, and the Syrians of Zobah. The tribes of the east of Jordan, also, in his reign conquered the Hagareens, a tribe of nomadic Arabs, and spread themselves through the desert towards the Euphrates. Saul still expected long and hard contests with the Philistines, and tried to surround himself with all the men among Israel who were brave and skilled in war he took measures to have experienced troops and armies easily assembled in case of necessity, and he gave the general command of his military forces to Abner,
;

son of Ner, his

own

cousin-german.

He

is

the only great dignitary

whom we

find

about Saul.

In general he had hitherto preserved his

court,

simplicity of manners, he

had no

and

his

household comprised
to Saul, and,

only members of his

One

day,

own Samuel, now

owed

family.

very near his end,

his

came

remind-

ing the king that he

crown

to

him, ordered him in the

name

of Jehovah to take up arms against the Amalekites, the earliest and most inveterate of the enemies of the Hebrews, and to wage against

them a war of extermination. Saul obeyed, and his expedition was crowned with success but in place of destroying all, as the prophet had ordered him, he carried off as booty the best of the cattle and Agag, king of Amalek, was made prisoner but the other valuables. Amalekites were not entirely destroyed, as Moses himself had commanded, and there still might be some fear of fresh attacks from them and the more so that Saul, tempted by the prospect of getting money, had entered into negotiations as to the ransom of Agag. Indignant at this disobedience to the commands of God, and at the cupidity which
; ;

for a bribe could seriously

security,

endanger the future of the people and their meet Saul at Gilgal, and laid a curse on him in the name of the Lord, telling him that God rejected him from that time, and announcing prophetically an evil end for him and for his race. At the same time, to render impossiljle the scheme for setting free the king of the Amalekites on ransom, Samuel with his own hand killed

Samuel went

to

Agag.

134
5.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

I'^roni
tliis

moment

tlie

rupture was final and comi)Icte between

the party who were The Divine protection By God's command Samuel went to
all

Saul on one

side,

and Samuel, backed by

sincerely attached to the law, on the other.

abantloned the king of Israel. Bethlehem, and secretly anointed as heir to the throne, to the exclusion of the son of Saul, the youngest of the sons of Jesse, David, who had already proved his courage by defending his flock against lions and
bears.

God belonged to the tribe of Judah, descended from Nahshon, who had been the chief of and was directly His grandmother was that Ruth whose touchthe tribe in the desert. ing story is related in the Bible, in the Book that bears her name.
This newly chosen one of

From

the

moment

of the prophet's curse, Saul became subject to

fits

of dark melancholy, from which he recovered only to give himself up

influence of

David alone, whom the secret Samuel had introduced into the palace, could, by the melody which he drew from his harp, drive away his dark hallucinations. Thus the young shepherd, whose secret election was not yet known, soon became necessary to the king, who loaded him with favours and made him his armour-bearer. 6. A circumstance now occurred to bring out his valour. The war with While the two armies were face to the Philistines had been re-kindled. face, a warrior of gigantic stature, named Goliath, a native of the town of Gath, and sprung from the old race of the Anakim, carne out each day from the camp of the Philistines to defy Israel. No one was found who dared to confront this redoubtable warrior. David, armed only with his sling, had the courage to measure himself with him the first stone slung killed the giant, and David, throwing himself on him, cut
to the committal of acts of cruelty.
;

off his head.

fled

The

Philistines, terrified at the death of their

champion,

away precipitately, and the Israelites pursued them as far as the gates of Ekron and Gath, making a great slaughter among their
After this triumph, and some other exploits not less glorious against

troops.

and Jonathan conceived for him an affection to which he was always true. But jealousy entered the soul of the king when he heard the Israelites celebrate the victories of David by singing, " Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." From that day he hated him deeply, and sought out every means to destroy him. Saved on many occasions by Michal his wife, by Jonathan, and by the high priest Ahimelech, David, warned by Jonathan, was obliged to flee to the king of Gath, when he feigned madness to escape the vengeance of the Philistines. But he did not long remain there ; having assembled a band of some hundreds of desperadoes, and lived some time in the land of Moab, he returned to the land of Judah, without, however, stirring up civil

the same enemies, Saul gave David the hand of his daughter,


DAVID'S
war.
Tlie forest of Hareth

WANDERING
was

LIFE.

135

his place of refuge.

Samuel died

at

Ramah, mourned by ail Israel, and at a very great age. From that time Saul put no restraint on the sanguinary

passions

which took possession of him. He began to persecute without intermission and without pity, as friends and partisans of David, the priests,
the Levites, the scliools of the prophets the authority of religion, and the

in a word,

all

that represented

power of the law. He may almost be said in his folly to have declared war against Jehovah. Having arrested the high priest Ahimelech and the eightyfive priests who lived with him in the city of Nob, he caused them to be slain before his own eyes and afterwards, as if maddened with slaughter, he put to the sword the whole population of Nob, men, women and children. One only of the sons of Ahimelech, named
;

Abiathar, the heir to the high priesthood, escaped from the massacre,

and took refuge with David.

Wandering from place

had saved by help of
his

to place to save his

life,

more than once beof Keilah,

trayed in his misfortunes, betrayed too by the

men

whom

he

men

\\hen attacked by the enemy, the son of

life

Jesse nevertheless spared the

of the king

which twice was

in his

power

once in

the desert of Ziph, and once again near Engadi.

life

In

he found time to marry two new wives, the widow of the rich Nabal, Abigail, who had afforded him most generous assistance, and Ahinoam of Jezreel ;* whilst Saul,
the course, however, of this wandering
in

contempt of both law and morality, gave his

first

wife, Michal, to

another husband.

At

last

he was obliged again to

favourably, and gave

retire to

Gath, whose

king, Achish, received

him

him the

city of Ziklag.

There David passed many years, making many incursions against the Amalekites, and thus, even in his exile, serving the cause of Israel. 7. After some time, the war recommenced between Saul and the Philistines. Achish, king of Gath, opened the campaign, and compelled David, whom he had in his power, to march with him. But happily the mistrust of the Philistme chiefs, by compelling Achish to dismiss from his camp the Israelitish hero, relieved him from the
cruel alternative of either betraying his benefactor, or fighting against
his counti'y.

had advanced to Shunem, in Northern Palestine. Saul, at the head of his army, had taken up a position on the heights of Gilboa, within view of his enemies there was fought a battle in which the Israelites w-ere cut to pieces, and the forebodings of Samuel were fulfilled. Saul having lost Jonathan and two other of his sons, fell on his sword, so that he might not die by the hand of the
Philistines
;

The

* This, of course, was the Jezreel in the south of Judah (mentioned Josh. XV. 56), not the more famous city of the same name the plain of Esdraelou. Tr.


136
Philistines.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The enemy
had reigned
cut off his

head and deposited

his

arms as

trophies at Ascalon, in the temple of the goddess Ashtaroth, the Asiatic

Venus.

He

forty years.

Section
.

II.

Daa'id (1058

1019).

at the news of the death of Saul, broke out into the most and sincere expressions of grief, the persecutions which he had suffered from that king had not caused him to forget the benefits he had at first received from him. Above all he lamented his friend Jonathan, and poured out his grief in the beautiful elegy preserved in the Second Book of Samuel
I.

David,

lively

The beauty

How

of Israel is slain are the mighty fallen

upon thy high places

Tell it not in Gath, Publish it not in the streets of Ask el on ; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa let there be no dew, Neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings For there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away. The shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty. The bow of Jonathan turned not back, The sword of Saul returneth not empty.
:

oil.

Saul and Jonathan

lovely and pleasant in their lives, death they were not divided They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, clothed you in scarlet, with other delights. put ornaments of gold on your apparel. are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle Jonathan, thou art slain on thine high places. 1 am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan Very pleasant hast thou been to me Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. are the mighty fallen. And the weapons of war perished

Were

And

in their

Who Who How

How

But, in spite of his regrets, he hastened to profit by an event which

put him in a position to claim the rights resulting from the anointing He returned to his with holy oil which he had received from Samuel.
country, and was proclaimed king at Hebron by his own tribe of Judah but the other tribes recognised Ishbosheth, son of Saul, whom Abner had hastened to proclaim at Mahanaim. A very sanguinary civil war followed, lasting seven years, and in which David and his cap;

JERUSALEM THE CAPITAL.

137

tains found Abner a foiTnidable antagonist. Irritated, however, by the conduct of Ishboshctli towards him, Saul's old general resolved to make advances to David, and to gain favour, brought with him to Hebron

David's wife, Michal. Joab, the first of the lieutenants of David, fearing to find in Abner a rival in the king's favour, assassinated him at
the gate of the city, and David, though exasperated by this crime, never-theless did not dare
to ]Hmish
this

man who was one

of the firmest

supporters of his crown.

was assassinated by two traitors, who David indignantly refused all complicity with the crime, and had them executed on the spot. Ishbosheth, however, left only one son, lame and incapable of reigning, named Mephibosheth his death i-e-established the unity of the Hebrew nation, for all the tribes who had supported him now
short time after, Ishbosheth
his

came with

head

to

David, hoping for a reward.

hastened to recognise David.

favourable to David during the time of the

be Themselves embarrassed by wars against the Syrians, Phoenicians, and other peoples, they had seen with pleasure divisions lireak out among the Hebrews, and perhaps believed that David, in remembrance of his exile, and the
Philistines
to
at first inclined to
civil

The

seem

have shown themselves

war.

hospitality of Achish, intended to

make

his

own

people subordinate to

was no longer the same when they saw him unanimously received by the Hebrews. They at once attacked him, and twice showed themselves in the valley of Rephaim near Jerusalem, but on both occasions they were routed. 2. The reign of David was the most glorious epoch in the history The interior administration of the monarchy was of the Israelites. organised, and the supremacy of the tribe of Judah over the other tribes was established. Beyond the limits of Palestine its preponderance was felt fi-om the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Euphrates. To establish definitively the national unity, and to be able to extend its limits, it was above all things necessary to obviate all risk of danger in the heart of the country, and to crush the few Canaanitish colonies which still lived isolated among the tribes. Thus, when David, at the age of thirty-seven, was left without a competitor for the throne, he commenced his actual reign. From the Jebusites, who were the most
them.

But

it

warlike of those colonies, he took their citadel Jebus, in the territory of

On the hill its name to Jerusalem. of Sion was built " the City of David," and this he made the seat of his
the tribe of Benjamin, and changed

power, which had hitherto been at Hebron.

The

great

number of heroes who surrounded David

at

the beginning

and who for the most part had accompanied him in his wanderings, augured well for the success of his warlike enterprises. History has preserved us the names of thirty of these famous men,
of his reign,

138

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

some of whom had performed prodigies of valour. The most celebrated was Joab, a man of ferocious character but of proved courage, and endowed with those quahties wliich make a leader. The court of David was also remarkable from its commencement for a certain amount of luxury in strong contrast with the simplicity of Saul's. David, when he became master of Jerusalem, liuilt there a magnificent palace, for which Hiram, king of Tyre, with whom he had contracted an intimate alliance, sent him cedar-wood from Lebanon, as well as the necessary workmen and artificers. With regard to his domestic relations, he imitated the customs of other Oriental sovereigns. At Hebron, the number of his legitimate wives, without counting Michal, long separated from him, amounted to six, one of whom was the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, in Syria. Each of them had borne him a son.
Michal alone had never any children.
Established at Jerusalem, David increased the number of his wives, and established a harem. This was the first infraction of the law of Moses (Deut. xvii. 17), but we shall see that in later times his love for women led the king to commit crimes much more serious. Apart from this weakness, against which the Mosaic law had not raised barriers sufficiently strong, David showed himself disposed to be a faithful vassal of Jehovah, in the sense in which Samuel, an interpreter of the trae spirit of the law, had understood the position of royalty. Two prophets, disciples of Samuel, were his friends and intimate councillors one was Gad, the other Nathan. These two men, inspired by God, were distinguished by their noble character, and by the frankness with which they reproached the king on every occasion with the faults of his private or public life, and the king always heard them with
;

deference.
3-

The

reign of

David was

essentially a warlike one.

New successes

some districts Gath even, and the towns of its territory were conquered and re-united to the Israelitish kingdom. It was then that David removed the Ark of the Covenant from the house of Abinadab at Kirjath-jearim, where it had been deposited
against the Philistines put an end to the tribute which
still

of the southern tribes were

paying.

ever since the disasters of the time of Eli, and brought

it

to

Jeru-

salem (after a short stay in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite), in solemn procession, depositing it in the Tabernacle which was set

up in the Acropolis of Sion. He intended there to build a magnificent Temple, worthy of Jehovah, but Nathan dissuaded him, revealing to him that the duty of constructing the Temple was reserved by Providence
for

his

successor,

and that

he, David,

should devote himself

entirely to warlike affairs, so as to establish firmly the

power of

Israel.

He

then turned his anns successively against the neighbouring nations.

crushed, and

The Moabites were

became

tributaries.

The

Syrians of


EXTENT OF DAVID'S EMPIRE.
Zobah. under their king Hadadezer, were
of Damascus
in their turn

139
;

conquered

those

who wished to assist them, were reduced to pay and the king of Ilamath, named Toi, the enemy of the prince of Zobah, At the other sent his own son to congratulate David on his victory. extremity of the kingdom the power of the Amalekites and IduniKans was totally broken. x\n insult offered to David's ambassadors by Hanun, king of the Ammonites, led to a serious war. Hanun obtained mercenaries from
tribute,

Syria to reinforce his army.

generals, gave
first

Joab and Abishai his brother, David's Joab, opposed to the Syrians, gained the success, and the Ammonites, seeing their allies routed, took to

them

battle.

into their town. But this defeat provoked a great coalition, embracing all the people between the Jordan and the Euphrates. David, however, fearlessly marched against them at the head of his army he vanquished all his enemies, and made himself master of the small Aramean kingdoms of Damascus, Zobah, and Hamath, and subjugated the Eastern Idum^ans, who met their final defeat in the Valley of Salt. By these victories, he extended his dominions as far as the Euphrates. At the same time, towards the south, he took from the Eastern Idumteans the ports of Eziongeber and Elath (the ^Elana of the
flight
;

classical geographies,) at the extremity of the Elanitic Gulf, establishing

a communication, by the

Red

Sea, with the remotest countries of Asia

results,

and

Africa.
;

Having obtained these

David again attacked the

Ammonites

Rabbath, their capital, was besieged, and fell after a long This success was chiefly due to Joab but it seems from his defence. character and antecedents, that we ought also to attribute to him the atrocious executions which followed. Not only in the capital which
;

was taken by

assault, but in all the

Ammonite

cities,

the conqueror,

and warlike classes of the people, is said to have " put them under saws and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them to pass through the brick-kiln." 4. In the midst of so many labours and conquests, David, led astray by his passions, fell suddenly into a double crime. He was in his palace during the siege of Rabbath-Ammon, when one day he saw
to exterminate the upper

Bathsheba,
her

wife

of Uriah the

Hittite,

one of his most valiant and

devoted captains,
off,

He seduced and carried and then Joab, by his orders, treacherously caused the death of Uriah in an encounter with the Ammonite.s. David then publicly For this odious conduct, for this first crime married Bathsheba. aggravated by a second, he was severely reproached by the prophet Nathan. David expressed a sincere and deep repentance, to which many of his Psalms bear testimony. But God did not permit so cruel David, who had so basely an abuse of power to pass unpunished.
who was
then at the siege.
violated sacred family rights,

saw himself punished by

his

own

children,


I40
'

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

first

Bathsheha's

son died.

After

tlie

birth of another son,

named

Solc-

mon, the whole royal family was troubled by the disorders and crimes Amnon, eldest son of David, did violence to his sister of its members. and was soon afterwards assassinated by her brother Absalom. Tamar, Absalom himself revolted against his father, induced by the advice of Ahitophel, one of David's chief councillors, and led ten of the tribes David was compelled to leave Jerusalem on after him into rebellion. and in this precipitate flight had to foot in the middle of the night
;

submit also to the insults of Shimei, a relative of Saul, who cast stones Nevertheless, all who at him, and overwhelmed him with curses. remained faithful to David gathered around him, and the king was able
with 20,000

men

to offer battle to
killed

Absalom was defeated and

directed that the
5.
life

the rebels in the Forest Ephraim.* by Joab, though David had expressly

of his guilty son should be spared.

But internal peace was not yet completely secured by this event. The jealousy of the tribes of Israel against the men of Judah, whom they accused of wishing to usurp the good gi-aces of the king, and the
animosity of the
of Benjamin,
latter,

brought about

anew

revolt.

Sheba, of the tribe

;

but Joab marched against him and besieged him in Abel, whose inhabitants threw him the head of the rebel. The civil war was then stifled, and, except some campaigns against the Philistines, the remainder of the The population increased very conreign of David was peaceable. appears that peace had enervated and corrupted it, for but it siderably the Lord judged his people deserving of chastisement, and so permitted David to draw down on himself and his subjects a teiTible Pride, or perhaps the wish to increase his treasure by imscourge, t posing new taxes and to ensure the means of recruiting a numerous perraised an insurrection

among

the Israelites

manent army, induced the king

adult men, without counting

to order a general census.

1,100,000

were found in Israel, 470,000 in Judah, and still Levi and Benjamin were not numbered. A but it had scarcely terrible pestilence then came on the land of Israel three days when God, pitying the misery of his people and the lasted
children,
;

women and

grief

of their king,

who humbled
at revolt

himself before
this

Him, stayed

the

avenging angel. 6. Another attempt

was made about

time by Adonijah,

one of the king's sons.

But David, who intended his crovm to pass to

* Evidently no part of Mount Ephraim, properly so called, but in " The name "Wood of Ephraim the land of O'ilead beyond Jordan. been derived from the slaughter is conjectured by Dean Stanley to have of the Ephraimites by Jephthah, in that neighbourhood (Judges xii. 6).

Tr.

t Compare Ex. xxx. 12, scq. It does not seem that David paid, or intended to pay, this ransom for his people. Tr.

CHARACTERISTICS OF DAVID'S EMPIRE.

141

Solomon, caused the latter to be anointed and recognised by the people. Adonijah, abandoned by his partisans, submitted, and obtained pardon. But the aged king did not long survive this new trial. He died at the age of seventy years, thirty-three years after having established the seat On his death-bed he gave wise counsels to of his power at Jerusalem. Solomon, and left him the plans by which to build the Temple his son
of the true God.

David had not only founded the political and material power of the Hebrew state, he had also firmly established its institutions. " Saul," says the learned Heeren, "had only been the general of an army,
7.

carrying out the orders of Jehovah as transmitted by Samuel, without a

court, without a fixed residence.

The

nation was as yet only an agri-

cultural

and pastoral

race, without riches, without luxury, but

which beeffected

came by

insensible degrees a warlike people.

Under David, were

a total reform of the nation and change of the motle of government; the
establishment of a fixed residence at Jerusalem, where was also the seat
of the sanctuary; a rigorous observance of the worship of Jehovah as
the exclusively national religion; a considerable increase to the state by

conquest; a gradual development of despotism and of a palace govern-

ment, whose political results manifested themselves towards the end of And in fact from the time when his reign, by the revolt of his sons."
the government of David was completely constituted,

an organised army; chiefs, who took their turn of service one month in each year, with 24,000 native soldiers; a foreign body-guard for the sovereign comgovernors of the tribes; a posed of Cretan and Philistine archers financial system, organised in all the towns and villages; ministers charged with the supervision of each branch of agriculture, both for councillors the collection of taxes and the care of the i-oyal domains
;
;

of state; a general

from the himself drove his own oxen

commanding the troops; all these carry us far away time when .Saul, already proclaimed king by one part of Israel,
to the field.

But David was

king.

not only the author of a political organisation and a

successful general, he

was

also

and

it is

his greatest glory

a prophet-

and described, with incomparable magnificence of style, the splendours of that New Jerusalem one day He \\ as the author to rise on the ruins of that which he was Iniilding. of the greater part of those Psalms in which repentance finds its most touching, and most sorrowful accents, prayer its most perfect and sublime form beautiful sacred poems which furnish consolation for all ages, and support for every pious mind.
far off into the future,

He saw


142

"

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Section
1.

III.

Solomon

(1019

978).

nominated by and anointed before the death of his enter on full possession of the throne without sqme difficulty. Adonijah put forth new pretensions, and Solomon, to free himself from this dangerous competitor, was compelled to put him to death. Joab was put to death as his accomplice, even though he had taken refuge at the altar, and Solomon also for the same reason deposed The reign of Solomon was, on the whole, the high priest Abiathar. peaceful. He preserved the regular habits of administration and the
father,

Although

Solomon did not

governmental system of his father, as we may see by a passage in the First Book of Kings (iv. I 8), which mentions the king's scribes, the secretary of state, the commander-in-chief of the anny or minister of

war, the president of the council of state, the chief of the chamberlains,

the king's " friend " (a

name which we
title

shall see further

on was

used in Asia and Egypt as a

or an office at court), the steward of

the royal household, the minister of the public revenue, and finally twelve officers, who served in regular turn each for one month, to supply
provisions for the king and his household.

Hardly was he

in possession of royalty,

when Solomon strengthened

Moreover, himself by foreign alliances with Tyre and with Egypt. desirous of inaugurating his reign rather by religious acts than by war,

he went

to (jibeon, and there offered 1,000 burnt offerings to the Lord. Peaceably installed master of the countries conquered by his father, he saw his government recognised from the Eluphrates to the Mediterranean, An unwarlike king, he lived in peace with and to the river of Egypt.

the neighljuuring nations; and Scripture has expressed the profound

peace which Israel enjoyed in his reign, by the words " Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his own vine and under his own fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba (that is from the north to the south of
the kingdom)
2. all

the days of Solomon.

this peace,

Favoured by
project

Solomon resolved
and
to build

to put into execution the

great

of his father,

the temple of Jehovah at

ally of

Jerusalem.

Hiram, king of Tyre, the firm been of David, furnished him, in exchange
in the land of Israel, with the requisite

for oil

Solomon, as he had and grain, abundant

timber cut in the cedar forests

of Lebanon,

of which

there

remain

now

only a few trees

many

Tyre and from Gebal or centuries old. skilled in the art of stone cutting and working in Byblos workmen wood, work in which the Israelites were then but little practised, but There was also a Tyrian, born for which the Phoenicians were famous. of a Jewish mother, and named like his king, Hiram, whom Solomon

Solomon brought

also from

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON.

143

brought to Jerusalem to execute the works of bronze, iron, tjold, silver, and marble, for the service of the Temple, as well as to direct the dyeing of the precious stuffs, purple, and blue and crimson (2 Chron.

Seven years and a half were occupied in the building of this ii. 14). famous edifice, which was commenced in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, and on which the king lavished every sort of oriental In the eighth year the dedication was held in the gorgeousness. midst of an immense concourse of people; the Ark of the Covenant was then placed in the Holy of Holies, the inaccessible place, symbol 22,000 oxen and 120,000 of the impenetrable majesty of God. served for a feast to the entire nation convoked to this grand sheep In conformity with the strict spirit of the Mosaic law, it solemnity. was forbidden to sacrifice elsewhere " the unity of God," says Bossuet, "was symbolised in the unity of His temple." The description of the Temple, of its furniture and of its splendours,

fills

many

chapters of the

Book

of Kings.

From

this description

M.

de Saulcy and the Count de Vogiic have lately attempted, in very interesting works, a complete and full description of it. Its foundations, constructed of gigantic stones, still exist over nearly the whole area of its

Temple has contributed Solomon not less than the marvellous wisdom God gave him, and which was proved by all his actions, and all his words, especially in his administration of justice, a wisdom which the Queen of Sheba, in Southern Arabia, came from a far country to test and admire, and which the Arabs, in their fertile imagination, have transformed into a magic power that gave to Solomon
site

on Mount Moriah.

to the celebrity of the

The name

building of the

of

the
3.

command

of

all

the Genies.
princess

Solomon married an Egyptian

whom

he permitted to

exercise her own religious worship in a small chapel expressly built in the style of the religious edifices on the banks of the Nile, a chapel which a happy accident has preserved intact down to our own days in the village of Siloam, near the gates of Jerusalem. He built for himself

and

for her, in the

the Bible describes in

walls.

Acropolis of Sion, a very magnificent palace, which much detail. He enclosed Jerusalem with strong

He

built or enlarged

Megiddo, Gezer, and Baalath

and

lastly,

he founded in the desert which extends from Anti-Lebanon to the Euphrates, the great city of Tadmor, afterwards Palmyra, intended as
a halting-place for the caravans on the road between Damascus and

Babylon.

by the mere remained in renown of his name, to keep in submission those the interior of the country of the Canaanitish colonics once conquered by Joshua the Amorite.s, Hittites, Perrizitesand Hivites. He employed them, after the manner of the Egyptians, in the great works with which

More powerful than

his

father,

Solomon was

aljle,

who

still

144

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Israelites for the

he enriched his kingdom, whilst he i^eserved the and the administration.

4.

army

But the principal enterprise of the reign of Solomon was that which opened to the Hebrews the navigation and commerce of the Southern Sea. Commerce with India dates back to the most remote

From the very earliest ages the refined civilisation of Egypt and Syria sought with avidity the spices, the aromatics, the metals, the precious and scented woods, the gems, the ivory in a word, a.11 the valuable merchandise which the rich soil of India supplies in abundance. But if commerce with India thus dates back to almost the earliest epochs of Egyptian civilisation, never before the time of Solomon had The awkward and ill- constructed this commerce taken a direct route. themselves of the monsoon to cross the ocean, and Indian shijis availed bring the riches of their country to the ports of Yemen or Arabia Felix. Thence the merchandise of India was conveyed by caravans across Arabia to Babylon, or carried by sea to Egypt. The Egyptian vessels, which for a very long time alone ploughed the Red Sea, and had there uncontested dominion, shipped at the ports of Yemen and carried home these
antiquity.

commodities.
rich

Solomon was the first to conceive the happy idea of relieving this and important commerce from the shackles of a forced depot in vSouthern Arabia, by making his ships double the southern point of the

Arabian Peninsula, and steer straight to the Indian ports. He took advantage of the excellent harbours which his father's conquest of Idumsea had given him on the Red Sea, and of that weakening of the Egyptian power, hitherto irresistibly preponderant, which had been going on for many generations, and now permitted the creation of a new naval power on that sea. But Solomon was not able alone to carry out the the Hebrews had no experience in mariplan which he had conceived time affaire, nor had they those instincts which make seamen.* He engaged then with his ally Hiram, king of Tyre, to undertake at their common expense voyages to India. A fleet was built with timljer from Judaea at Elath and Eziongeber it was manned by Phoenician sailors, A first the most skilful, hardy and famous of all ancient navigators.
; ;

* Dean Stanley (5'/;?^/ ajid Palestine, p. 261) observes, "To have planted the centres of national and religious life on the sea-shore was a thought which never seems to have entered even into the imperial mind of Solomon. Far away at Eziongeber, on the Gulf of Akaba, was the chief emporium of his trade. Even Jaffa only received the rafts which To describe the capital as a place floated down the coast from Tyre. "where shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass by " (Is. xxxiii. 21) is not, as according to Western notions it would be, an expression of weakness and danger, but of prosperity and security."


SOLOMON'S IDOLATRY.
145
expedition was conducted to Ophir, a country which the historian of ancient India, M. Lassen,* has conclusively demonstrated to be the

country of Abhira, near the present province of Guzerat.t It was a great success, and many treasures were brought back, which the two
kings divided.

From
years

this time, as

long as Solomon lived, the

fleet sailed

every three

same country, and returned thence, laden with spices, In return for the share he had aromatics, gold, silver and ivory. received of these Indian expeditions, Hiram made Solomon his partner
for

the

in the long

voyages which the Tyrian

fleets regularly

made

every year

as far as the southern coast of Spain, then called Tarshish (a

name
and

applied in earlier times

to Italy), in search

of

tin,

lead,

cinnabar,

many other sorts of valuable merchandise. So king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance" (i Kings
the Bible says,
X. 27).

"The

brilliant prosperity, that power, and those incalculable depraved the heart of the king, who allowed himself to be seduced by the love of pleasure, and forgot the God of his fathers. Led away by the love of women, he opened his harem, already scandalously full, to a crowd of strange women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites,
5.

But that

riches,

Zidonians, and Hittites.

"Of the

nations," says the Bible,

Israel,

ing which the Lord said unto the children of

Ye

in unto them, nor they to you. for surely they will heart after their gods " (i Kings xi. 2 ; Ex. xxxiv. 16 ; Deut.

" concerngo turn away your

shall not
vii. 3, 4).

In

fact,

we

see that Solomon, giving

way

to the solicitations of his

strange wives and concubines, so far forgot the majesty of the Creator as to serve Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, Moloch, " the

abomination of the Ammonites," and to build a temple to Chemosh " the abomination of the Moabites." Alliance with neighbouring nations, and toleration of the worship of strange gods, were things utterly at variance with the calling of Israel and the law of Moses.

Solomon began very soon to cause great irritation to Advice and threalenings were not wanting, When his fall was complete, but he turned a deaf ear to them all. had publicly shown himself unfaithful to the Divine precepts, when he the punishment of God began to fall on the head of this king, till then and before the tomb closed on him he saw that the so fortunate threats he had despised were already on their way to accomplishment.

The conduct

of

a large part of the people.

* Indische Alterthumskimde, vol. ii p. 5S4 592! favour of t Sir E. Tennent, in his work on Ceylon, argues in Ophir having been in that island. Sir H. Rawlinson seems to Tk. accept the fact as proved (see Raw. Her. i. 243, note).
,

146

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

His empire did not stand untouched, and he lived to see the first sigiis The IduniKan Hadad, assisted by the king of its dismemberment. Egypt, took from him some of the provinces round the Red Sea. The Syrian Resin made himself independent at Damascus, and then assumed
of

the crown. Jeroboam, in exciting the tribes of Israel to revolt, prepared the way for the division of the Hebrew people, and commenced This last was the son of Nebat, of the tribe of Ephraim. its "ruin.

had attracted the attention of Solomon, who had But the king, given him an important administrative appointment. having learned by the voice of the prophet Ahijah that his protegee should come to reign over ten of the tribes, and receiving from another quarter the news that he was preparing an insurrection in Jeroboam fled to Sheshonk, the North, would have put him to death. king of Egypt (called Shishak in the Bible), and there lived till the death of Solomon, which took place after a reign of forty years, that is His
intelligence

about the year 978 B.C. The reign of Solomon

first

is

of the highest importance in the history of

its

the Hebrews, and serves as 'the pivot of

precise
in fact, that of the

whole chronology.

The

and positive date which is met with in all that history' is, solemn dedication of the Temple. It is only after that event that we can possibly fix with certainty, by means of the facts furnished by the Books of Samuel and of Kings, the other dates of the reigns of Solomon, of David, and of Saul. excelled the wisdom of 6. Solomon's wisdom. Scripture tells us, all the children of the East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. " For he vfas wiser (before his fall, be it clearly understood,) than all And his fame was in all nations round about. And men proverbs and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake 3,000 he spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes " (i Kings iv. 30, set^.). All there remain only the " Proverbs," or a collecthese works are lost tion of maxims which bear internal evidence of his authorship, and the Book called Ecclesiastes, in which all the circumstances, all the pleasures of human life are appreciated at their true value, and stamped with the motto, " All is vanity." This last work is assigned to the king The Song of Songs is also attributed to of Israel with less certainty. a mystical poem, in which, under the forms of impassioned Solomon, love, is figured the longing of the soul after God, an example copied in
;
. .
.

later times

among

the

Arabs by some mystic

sects of Islam.

SEPARATION OF JUUAH AND ISRAEL.

147

CHAPTER

IV.

SEPARATION OF THE TEN TRIBES. KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.FALL OF SAMARIA AND JERUSALEM.
Chief Authorities
tiquities,

The

Bible,

Books of Kings and Chronicles;

The

Prophets, particularly Isaiah, feretniah

and Ezekicl.

^Josephus,
I.

An-

Books VIII. and X.

the beginning of Chapter

The modern writers mentioned at

Section

I.

Rehoboam and Jkroboam. Separation of the Ten Tribes (978-957).

I.

The
this

of glory and political power to which the

But

David and Solomon represent the highest degree Hebrews have ever attained. very prosperity, and the corruption that it introduced at the
reigns of

court, the

development of commercial relations with foreign powers,

evil

could not but react on the interior state of the kingdom of Israel, and

on the manners and faith of the people. bound the Hebrews together, was weakened by the prevalence of idolatry under Solomon. Royalty, powerful and respected as it was under David and his successor, was yet not firm enough to form the foundation of the unity of the nation, and to establish permanently the preponderance of Judah over the other tribes. Even at the close of the reign of David we have seen that an insurrection was
exercise

an

influence

Religion, the only tie which

attempted, from jealousy of the importance and prerogatives of the from which the king had sprung.

tribe

The symptoms of revolt liecame again apparent, and in a much more menacing form, in the last years of Solomon. The prophet Ahijah had clearly announced to that monarch the division of his kingdom. The enormous expenses which the great works of his reign had entailed tended to alienate the Northern tribes from those of the South, and to excite a rupture. Solomon's successor was his son Rehoboam, who was forty-one years of age. The deputies of the tribes of Israel who came to do homage to the new king, wishing at the same time to dictate some conditions to him, and to require a diminution of the burdens of the people, thought
L 2

148
it

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

better not to present themselves at Jerusalem, and they assembled at Shechem, the capital of the powerful tribe of Ephraim. They recalled Jeroboam from Egypt, and put him at their head. Rehoboam was invited to Shechem, to be proclaimed king, and not in the least suspecting the trap which was laid for him, he presented himself before the assembly. Jeroboam spoke in the name of the deputies: "Thy father," said he to the king, "made our yoke grievous; now, therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee." Rehoboam
surprised,

asked a delay of three days.

in advising

The

old state councillors of

Solomon were unanimous

him

to give

way, but the king

young courtiers, who, playing on his self-love, urged him to resistance. When, on the third day, Jeroboam and the deputies presented themselves before him, he haughtily replied, "My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. " Then the people broke out into rebellion, crying out, " What portion have we in David ... to your tents, O Israel see now to thine own house, David " i Kings xii. 2 Chron. x. ). Adoram, "who was over the tribute," sent by Rehoboam to calm the popular tumult, was stoned to death. Rehoboam had barely time to get into his chariot and fly in all haste to Jerusalem. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone remained faithful to the dynasty of David, whilst the others proclaimed Jeroboam king. The tribe of Benjamin, which had peculiar grievances against the house of David, would probably have joined with the tribes of Israel if its territorial position had not compelled it to hold to Judah. The city of Jerusalem was in fact partly in the land of Benjamin. Rehoboam attempted to resist ; he assembled an army of 180,000 men to subdue the seceded tribes, but God caused him to be told by the prophet Shemaiah that this event was brought about in the order of His providence, and that the soldiers were not to fight against their brethren. The army was disbanded, and the separation was thus consummated. 2. The Bible gives us no detail as to the respective limits of the two kingdoms formed by this separation. It merely says that the ten tribes declared for Jeroboam that is, Ephraim, which was at the head of the movement, Simeon, Dan, Manasseh, Issachar, Asshur, Zebulon, Naphtali, Reuben, and Gad. The new state, embracing the greater part of the nation, took by preference the name of Kingdom of Israel, which had already served in former times to designate the kingdom of Ishpreferred to their counsels the pernicious advice of his
:

bosheth.

The

land of Israel included, then,

all

Persea with the tribu-

tary countries as far as the Euphrates and the greater part of Palestine

on

this side the

Jordan.

The kingdom

of

Rehoboam,

called the

kingdom

of Judah, embraced only Southern Palestine, between Bethel and Beer-


LIMITS OF
sheba.

JUDAH AND

ISRAEL.

149

The king
tlie

of

Judah had,

besides, the suzerainty of

Idumea and

the land of
his sceptre

Philistines, but
in

the whole of the provinces subject to

were

extent hardly a fourth part

of the

kingdom of

Solomon.

The boundaries were not very exactly defined and some frontier towns belonging to the tribes of one of the two kingdoms were in fact, either from the wish of the inhabitants, or the force of circumstances, Thus, for example, the found in the power of the other kingdom. towns of Bethel and Rama, although situated in the territory of Benja;

min, belonged to the kingdom of Israel

but, in return, the

southern

cities of Dan, such as Ajalon, formed part of the kingdom of Judah. As for the towns which in the time of Joshua had been given to the tribe of Simeon, they all, from their geographical position, fell to the So then, in reality, as Simeon was one of the ten state of Judah. tribes who declared for Jeroboam, we must suppose that at any rate a A passage in the Book of part of the tribe had emigrated to the north.

Chronicles appears in fact to indicate that the Simeonites, after the reign

had been given them by Joshua (l Chron. iv. 31). Some remnants of that tribe, who had remained in the land of Judah, emigrated in later times, under Hezekiah, A learned Dutch to the number of 500 families,* towards Mount Seir. Orientalist, M. Dozy, has recently devoted a very learned and ingenious work to proving that they must have gone very far into Arabia, and have been the founders of the city of Mecca, t 3. The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah remained separate until the capture of Samaria by the Assyrians and the annihilation of the It does not seem that, during the whole of this long Israelitish state. space of time, any one conceived the idea of the re-establishment of The chronology of the two parallel national unity under one sceptre. kingdoms presents serious difficulties which St. Jerome has pronounced They have been minutely considered by students, who insuperable. have proposed numerous systems for their solution. We do not intend here to enter into a critical examination of the problem and the discussion of its elements; these are questions of detail which cannot be brought within the compass of the present work. Let us, then, confine ourselves to saying that the system most generally adopted by critics, and which seems preferable, arranges in the following manner the royal lists of the two monarchies formed from the ruins of that of David and Solomon:
of David, no longer possessed the towns which
*

Chron.

iv.

42.

Tr.

that the emigration of ^oo

The reading is " men " but there is no doubt men would entail the removal of their families.
;

t Die Israeliten zu Alekhah, Leyden,

1865.

150

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Kingdom ok Judah.
Kingdom of
of
B.C.
Coinniencciiiciil

Israel.

CoDimeiicoiient of the reign

of the reign of

B.C.

Rehoboam

A hijam
Asa
.

978. 961.

Jeroboam

978.

958.

Nadab
Baasha Elah
Zimri
.

953932.
9.SI-

Omri

Ahab
Jehoshaphat
916.

930. 919.
899. 898.

Ahaziah, or Azaria Jehoram, or Joram

Jehoram
Ahaziah

Athaliah Joash or Jehoash

.
.

891. 887. 886. 879.

Jehu
Jehoahaz Jehoash
. . .

886. 858. S42. 827.

Amaziah
Azariah

839-

Jeroboam
.

II.

810.

InteiTegnum Zachariah Shalhim

.

784 to 773.

Manahem
Pekahiah
.

773772. 772. 761.

759-

Pekah
Jotham Ahaz
.

758742.

Manahem
.

II.

742.
7.i3-

Pekah (restored) Hoshea

Hezekiah
727.

730.

Fall of the

Kingdom

of Israel 721.

It is necessary to place this

comparative table of the succession 01

easily result

the princes of the two kingdoms before the eye of the reader, in order
to avoid the confusion

which might

from relating simul-

Judah and of Israel, which appear at times to be extremely entangled. We now again take up the thread of events. 4. Jeroboam was hardly proclaimed king when he hastened to guard against any possible attack from the kingdom of Judah, by fortifying Shechem, his new capital, and some frontier cities. But he did not know how to make a proper use of the position in which he found himself. Instead of conducting himself as a prince chosen by God, instead of strengthening the state which he founded under Divine pertaneously, as are obliged to do, the annals of

we

IDOLATROUS WORSHIP AT BETHEL.

151

mission, he permitted himself to be led astray by a narrow-minded and

base feeling of distrustful policy, and became an apostate. Fearing lest the Israelites, if in conformity with the precepts of tlie law, they went
to sacrihce'in the
autliority of

Temple at Jerusalem, might again return to the Rehoboam, ajid thus shake his throne, he resolved to
lie

interrupt

all

the relations of his subjects with the religious centre of the

nation; and that

might better succeed

in this project

by

calling to his

aid the bad pa-ssions and gross tendencies of the people, he gave full At the two extremities of sanction to a revolting system of idolatry.
his

kingdom, at Dan and at Bethel, he built two Temples in which Jehovali was worshipped under the ignoble image of a golden calf, and thus renewed the crime of which the Hebrews had been guilty in the
desert

The people allowed themselves

materialistic worship of these
all

to be led into the seducing

;

and entirely

dumb gods
priests,

their altars

were erected on

the 'high places,

for

and new
tliis

strangers to

the tribe of Levi,

were consecrated
Levites, driven

new

religion.

The

legitimate priests

and

Jeroboam, abandoned their possessions and sought refuge in the kingdom of Judah, followed by the few men, who, of tlie tribes of Israel, wished to remain faithful to the law, and preDivine warnings were not, however, ferred expatriation to apostasy. to leave the criminal path he had entered ; wanting to induce Jeroboam Thus, one day, a zealous prophet fi-om the but he heeded them not.
out by

kingdom of Judah ventured to present himself in the Temple at Bethel, and to curse the altar at the moment when the king was offering incense on it. Abijah, son of the king, having become seriously ill, Jeroboam
conceived the idea of sending his wife, disguised, to ask advice of the prophet Ahijah, who had predicted his accession to the throne, and in whom the king of Israel hoped to find a protector favoured by

But Ahijah, far from showing a favourable disposition, re-, proached the queen in the most severe terms with the idolatry of Jeroboam, and predicted to her the coming end of his dynasty as well as the ruin of the kingdom of Israel, whose people were to be canied captive beyond the Euphrates, "and," added he, " when thy feet enter into the
heaven.
city the child shall die " (i
5.

Kings

xiv. 12).

The most ordinary political intelligence would have taught Rehoboam, with such conduct on part of his rival, to show great zeal for the orthodox Mosaic worship, which alone, even from a human He acted thus for point of view, could be to him the means of safety.
however, but too soon, and gave place to by the gradual mtroduction of Phoenician idolatry, together with all the abominable debaucheries which always accompanied it. At the same time, the schismatical worship of the high places spread in ail parts of the kingdom, even
three years.

His

zeal abated,

a culpable

indifference, quickly followed

152

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

those

among

who remained

faithful to the doctrine of the unity of

;

God.

Doubtless this worship was addressed to Jehovah

but the multiplication

of sanctuaries itself was a violation of the precepts of the Law, and

turned away worshipjiers from the one Temple, where alone sacrifice

was permitted

to

be

offered.

The
became
frontier,

indifference to the national sanctuary

and to the Holy City

so great that, in spite of the fortresses guarding his southern

Rehoboam

could

make no

resistance to the Egyptian troops,

who,

in the fifth year of his reign (970 B.C.),

invaded the kingdom of

Judah, probably through the intrigues of Jeroboam, and penetrated to Jerusalem. Rehoboam trembled in his palace, and the prophet

Shemaiah took advantage of the occasion

all his court, for his infidelity

to reproach the king, before

fortune.

The king and

and

all

his nobles

towards Jehovah, the cause of this miswho surrounded him showed

sincere repentance,

said,

"The Lord

is

righteous."

Shemaiah

then reassured them, by telling them thpt this was but a passing storm,

and that they must accept with resignation the chastisement of Heaven Shishak, king of Eg)'pt, at the head of a numerous (i Chron. xii. 6). army, entered the capital without striking a blow, and plundered the But as Shemaiah had announced, he had no treasures of the Temple. other intent than to humble, and to extort money from the king of Judah and his army retired when satisfied with their plunder. Rehoboam reigned twelve years after the Egyptian invasion. No memoConstant hostilities went on rable event marked that space of time. between Rehoboam and Jeroboam ; but they confined themselves to mutual small incuisions and it does not appear that there ever was any engagement of importance between the two kings. 6. After the death of Rehoboam, and the accession of his son Abijam, Jeroboam thought a time when the kingdom was passing from one hand to another favourable for attempting the conquest of the land of Judah. From two quarters he prepared to deliver decisive blows, and he had recourse to a levee en masse of the people. By this means Jeroboam put under arms 800,000 men, and Abijam 400,000. The two armies met on the mountains of Ephraim, near the heights of In spite of an ambuscade which Jeroboam set behind the Samaria. troops of Judah, they succeeded in possessing themselves of Bethel and some other Israelitish cities. Abijam, as little zealous as his father for religion, was guilty of the fault of not profiting by this event to abolish at Bethel the worship of the golden calf, and the town soon again fell Abijam died after a reign of three years. into the power of Israel. His son and successor, Asa, showed from his earliest years great zeal Though still very young, he displayed for the worship of Jehovah. he did not even spare his grandmother, great hatred for idolatry Maacha, widow of Rehoboam, who favoured the Phoenician worship.
;

INVASION AND DEFEAT OF ZERAH.

and attempted
to

153

domineer over him. Asa deprived her of all influence government. The statue of Ashtaroth, which she had dared to set up at Jerusalem, was burned in the valley of Kidron. Everywhere the altars of the Canaanitish deities were destroyed, and the persons consecrated to that shameful worship were expelled from
in the affairs of the

the land.

The only reproach that Scripture addresses to Asa is, that he allowed the schismatical altars on the high places to remain, in order
the apostasy of the ten tribes

to give occupation

whom

and means of subsistence to the numerous priests had induced to return to Judah.

Section
1.

II.

Disorders

and Reverses

in

the KingdoiM of
After his death the

Israel (957

919

b.c).
years.

Jerobo.am had reigned twenty-two

prediction of the prophet Ahijah against his family

diately accomplished.
son,

At

the close

was almost immeof only two years of power his

his principal officers,

Nadab, was assassinated by one of

named

Baasha, of the tribe of Issachar, whilst besieging Gibbethon, a city of

the tribe of Dan, which had fallen into the

power of the
all

Philistines.

Baasha seized upon the crown, and

competition, put to death
2.
all

to

remove

danger of any possible

the near relatives of Jeroboam.

re-established in the land of

in the kingdom of Israel, Asa Judah the worshij) of the true God and reigning with wisdom and glory, promoted in every shape the national One of his principal cares was the army, which he laboured prosperity. to place on an improved footing. Events were soon to show how prudent and full of foresight his conduct had been. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa (943 B.C.), a formidable invasion menaced the Zerah, king of Ethiopia,* at the head southern frontiers of Palestine. of a numerous arniy, recruited amongst the barbarous people of the Upper Nile, had overrun Egypt. After having subjugated it for the moment, and carried devastation from south to north throughout its whole extent, he crossed the river Rhinocorura, and assailed the kingdom of Judah, hoping to pillage it also, as well as all Syria. Asa led his army to meet the Ethiopians, and gave them battle in the valley Zerah was vanquished and obliged to of Zephathah, near Mareshah. fly, leaving an immense booty to the Jewish soldiers.

Whilst these events were occurring

* Some historians have erroneously confounded this prince with Tirhakah, king both of Ethiopia and Egypt, who lived nearly two centuries later. Others have supposed him to be Uaserkcn, king of Egypt, and not of Ethiopia, whose name could never be so transcribed mto Hebrew. The Zerah of the Bible was the king Azerch-Amen, whose name is read on several Ethiopian monuments. This important correction in history is due to Dr. Brugsch.

154

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The defeat of the king of Ethiopia was so complete that he could not even maintain himself in Egypt, but was obliged to retire in all
haste into his

own kingdom, above

Asa

the Cataracts of the Nile.

On

the

return of the victorious

to his capital, the prophet Azariah pre-

sented himself before the king, and in an address to him and to his
their recent success was the recompense of their return to religious truth, just as the disasters of Rehoboam had been

army showed how

the just punishment of his infidelity.

severity to idolatry
;

Asa continued

to

show great
Temple,

he executed also important repairs

in the

and

offered there splendid sacrifices in recognition of his victory over

Zerah.

Very many of the inhabitants of the land of

official

Israel

remained, in spite of the

that feast,

schism, faithful to the

who still God of their

came up to be present at and established themselves in the land of Judah. 3. Baasha, the usurper of the crown of Israel, could not without disquiet see the constantly increasing power of Asa and his kingdom. He commenced hostilities against him by fortifying the town of Ramah, and placing a garrison there, to prevent the people of Israel from communicating with the kingdom of Judah and going up to the Temple.

fathers, seeing the success of the pious Asa,

Asa could not permit

distance of only

the establishment of this threatening fortress at a

two leagues from Jerusalem. He emptied the royal treasury, and that of the Temple, to purchase the alliance of Benhidri,* king of Syria, who resided at Damascus, and had formed a considerable state of the Aramaean provinces, formerly sul^ject to David and Solomon. His offers having been accepted, Ben-hidri invaded the north of Palestine, penetrating to the neighbourhood of the lake of Gennesaret, and possessed himself of many important to\\-ns. Asa at the same time marched on Ramah, took it, and having demolished the fortifications, already far advanced, employed the materials in constructing at Geba and Mizpeh two fortresses, to serve as the bulwarks of his state against the kingdom of Israel. But the prophets were by no means pleased to see an alliance concluded with a pagan against the king of Israel, and at the expense of

A prophet, named Hanani, bitterly reproached Asa with leaning on Syria, instead of trusting entirely to the help of Jehovah, who could have subdued both the Syrians and the Israelites.
the sacred treasure.
* This name, borne successively by many kings of Syria, is written Ben-hadad in the Hebrew text of the Bible, and Ben-ader in the

Septuagint (vioc "ASip). The reading we have adopted, Ben-hidri, that given by the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions contemporary with these princes, is sufficiently near that which the LXX. followed. [Many Hebrew manuscripts give this name with a final R, as does also the
Samaritan.
tinguishable.]

The two

letters

and

in

Hebrew

are not easily dis-

DISORDERS IN THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL.

The words
people, and led to

155

of the inspired speaker were not without influence on the

some

trouliles.

Asa thought

fit

to use severity,

and

ventured even to cause Hanani to be arrested as a disturber of the From this moment to the end of his reign he found public peace.
himself exposed to the
ill-will

of the whole order of prophets,

who

looked on him as a tyrant.

this

Nevertheless, in spite of his rupture with

body,

who

represented the living and zealous element in the Mosaic

religion,

he did not swerve from religious truth, and was always a

faithful servant of

His orthodo.xy, and vigilance in repressing Jehovah. every attempt to introduce the worship of strange gods, procured him a long succession of years of peaceable reign, and he did not die till 916
B.C., after

forty-one years of prosperity, leaving in his son Jeho-

shaphat a worthy successor.

4. During this lime disorder and crime, the just punishment of schism and apostasy, were raging in the kingdom of Israel. Baasha reigned

for ten years after the invasion of the Syrians, but

without ever recovering

from that humiliation.

The

Bible mentions no more collisions between

him and Asa, but the two kings remained in a permanent state of hosBaasha, it may be seen by what we have related of his life, was tility. animated by a spirit of the greatest impiety; he had taken up the position of a declared enemy of Mosaic orthodoxy, in which he saw a
danger to
Judah.
his

own

crown,

and a source of strength

to the king of

The prophet Jehu, son of the prophet Hanani who had braved the anger of Asa when condemning his alliance with the Syrians, ventured to present himself before Baasha, to reproach him with having imitated
the sins of Jeroboam, after being exalted from the dust, to overturn his

he announced to him the divine decree by which, as a punishhe and his race should be cut off " I will make thy house," said he, speaking in the name of the Lord, "like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat " (i Kings xvi. 2). Asa lived to witness the accomplishment of this prophecy, and to see a third dynasty mount the throne established by Jeroboam; for events followed each
dynasty
;

ment

for this impiety,

other quicl<ly

in

the

land of Israel.

Baasha,

nevertheless,

trans-

mitted the crown to his son Elah, dying, after having reigned nearly twenty-three years. But Elah succumbed in the second year of
his
reign, struck

down,

like

the son of Jeroboam, by the hantl of a

conspirator.

Whilst the troops, commanded by the general-in-chicf (Jniri, were occupied by a second siege of the town of (iibbethon, then held by the
rhilistines, Zimri, one of the two captains of the war chariots, assassinated King Elah, "as he was drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, steward of his house " (i Kings xvi. 9), at Tirzah, then the capital of Israel. The murderer having seized on the throne, massacred all the


156

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

;

members of the royal family and the prediction of the prophet Jehu was thus accompUshed to the letter. When the news of Zimri's crime arrived in the camp at Gibbethon, the troops, indignant, proclaimed their general Omri king of Israel. Omri at once abandoned the siege to march on Tirzah, and the usurper, seeing himself forced to surrender the city, set fire to the palace and
burned himself alive there, after having reigned but seven days. Nevertheless, Omri, the elect of the army, found a rival in a certain Tibni, son of Ginath, on whom the people of the capital bestowed the crown. War broke out between the two pretenders, and as the party of Omri was the strongest, the death of Tibni left his competitor to be recognised by

The text of Scripture leaves us to infer that the civil war between Omri and Tibni lasted four years, for it makes the reign of Omri commence only in the thirty-first year of the reign of Asa (927 B c), although it gives for the conspiracy of Zimri and his
all Israel.

death the twenty-seventh year of that prince (931 Omri was proclaimed king by the army.

B.C.), in

which year

In the seventh year of his reign, two years after the death of Tibni, Omri, desirous of creating a new capital, doubtless because he distrusted the disorderly spirit and revolutionary tendencies of the inhabitants of Tirzah, bought, from an individual named Shemer, a hill, situated in a very strong position in the midst of the territory of Ephraim, and not he paid for the site two talents of silver, and built far from Shechem
;

there a city called Samaria.

destruction of the
its

There, ever

after,

down

to the

time of the

kingdom

of Israel by the Assyrians, the residence of

sovereigns was fixed.

The
is

foundation of Samaria

is

the only fact

worthy of remark which

recorded of the reign of Omri, with the

exception of an unfortunate war against the Syrians, in which he lost

towns. He governed in the same spirit as his predecessors, He maintaining the schismatical worship established by Jeroboam. died at last in the twelfth year of his reign, leaving the throne to his

many

son Ahab.

Section HI.

Ahab, Jehoshaphat, and their Sons {919886 B.C.).

son of Asa, ascended the throne of Jerusalem at
Inheriting the virtues of his father, he

I.

Jehoshaphat,

the age of thirty-five years.

manifested even a greater zeal for the national worship, and removed To inspire the people with stronger religious the last traces of idolatry.
sentiments, he sent, in the third year of his reign, five of the principal persons of his court, accompanied by two priests and nine Levites,

with the Book of the Law, to make the tour of the whole countiy, and At the same time Jehoshaphat built new fortiinstruct the inhabitants.

"

ELIJAH
fications,

AND AHAB.
all

157

he also carewas to be henceforth composed of two very strong divisions one of Judah, the other of Benjamin. The peace then reigning in the land of Judah, to which many neighbouring people paid tribute, much favoured the reforms of Jehoshaphat, which, as we shall see, were to be still further
filled

and

the arsenals with munitions of

kinds

fully re-organised the administration and the army.

This

last

developed.
2.

The

court of Samaria exhibited then a complete contrast to that

Whilst Jehoshaphat made unceasing efforts to re-estaJehovah in all its purity, Ahab, who surpassed in impiety all the kings of Israel, not content with the worship of the golden calves, and influenced by his Phcenician wife Jezebel, daughter of Eth-baal, king of Tyre, had introduced the worship of Baal and of Ashtaroth, to whom she erected temples and altars, even in the town of This irruption of Phoenician paganism brought trouble and Samaria. disorder on the whole kingdom of Israel, and gave rise to sanguinary
of Jerusalem.
blish the worship of

between the worshippers of Baal and the small number of who still adhered to the true faith. The former party had become the strongest Baal had no less than 450 priests or prophets in his service, and Ashtaroth 400, all maintained at the expense of Sustained by the energy of a fanatical and cruel queen, they Jezebel. persecuted with the" utmost fury the prophets of Jehovah, whom they attempted to exterminate. These latter were still tolerably numerous and in the persecution of which they were the objects, some of them exhibited such zeal and courage as had never previously been seen among them, and when occasion offered, they made sanguinary reprisals on Their chief was the celebrated prophet Elijah, and their adversaries. at court they had a secret protector in Obadiah, the governor of the kmg's house. But the mass of the people, undecided or indifferent, did not give a hearty support to either of the two parties, for which reason Elijah rc]:)roached them with "halting between two opinions, The king Ahab and declaring neither for Jehovah nor for Baal. himself, a man with no energy and no convictions, may be placed in At one time he bowed before Baal, the front rank of these waverers.
collisions

zealous partisans

and gave himself up

at

to all the abominations of Canaanitish worship

words of the prophet, he rent his clothes and hunililed himself before Jehovah. One day he permitted Jezebel to order the massacre of the jirophcts of Jehovah, and on another he gave up the prophets of Baal to the vengeance of ICIijah. The kingdom of Israel could not rise from this miserable position but by a violent revolution it required an energetic man, inspired from on high, full of courage and devotion, to bring over the waverers, to ensure the triumph of the holy cause of Jehovah and of Hebrew
another, terrified by the
;

nationality, against the tyrannical fury of the Phoenician princess.

In


iSS

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

time Israel saw a saviour

this calamitous

not to accomplish, at any rate to prepare the

to overturn the impious dynasty,
last traces of the

worship of the

who undertook alone, if way for, a revolution, and which sought to sweep away the very true God. This man was the prophet
arise,

Elijah, the hero of the epoch.

Full of fierce enthusiasm, excited by

almost continual Uivine inspiration, he braved, by his constancy and

and frequently made King Ahab tremble, who, though he detested, could not help respecting him. Like Samuel, he was inflexible in his purpose, and feared not to show himself stern, and even cniel, to accomplish what he found to be necessary. Unfortunately, Israel had fallen too low for a complete regeneration to be possible. Even Elijah never raised his voice against the image worship ot Bethel and Dan, but directed all his efforts to ensure the triumph ot and when at the name of Jehovah over the odious Phoenician worship the end of his days he was compelled to leave his work still unfinished, he chose a successor to continue and complete it. 3. Nevertheless, the throne of Ahab seemed to be strengthened by some brilliant victories. Ben-hidri, king of Syria, son of the one who had made war on Baasha and Omri, came, followed by thirty-nine princes, his vassals or allies, to besiege Samaria, which had become, as we have said, the capital of the kingdom. The king of Israel humbled himself before him, and offered to declare himself his vassal ; but Ben-hidri replied with such insolence, that, by the counsel of the God told him by a prophet elders, Ahab resolved on resistance. " Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day, that thou mayest know that I am the Lord." Feeling his faith re-animated in this danger, he ordered a sally of 7,000 men, who surprising the enemy's camp when they were in the midst of an orgy, routed them completely. But the courtiers of the king of Syria, as a salve to their own pride and that of their master, said to Ben-hidri, "Their gods are gods of
coui-age, the fury of Jezebel,
;

the

hills,

therefore they are stronger than

we

but

let

us fight against

be stronger than they."* The king permitted himself to be persuaded to replace exactly the men,

them

in the plain,

and surely we

shall

* It

may be

noticed that the

;

Hebrews were
their
first

essentially
in

Highlanders
to

in all their instincts of fight

impulse

making war was

occupy the heights of some mountain. Joshua made his night-march When resistance to for this purpose before the battle of Beth-horon. Jabin, king of Hazor, was contemplated, the first command of the prophetess to Barak was, "Draw toward Mount Tabor." Gideon "went down " from the hill to his great victory over Midian. It added

been sustained "

to David's grief for the loss of his friend Jonathan, that the defeat had The same feeling seems to have in thme high places." influenced the Hebrews also in later times ; the first Maccabrean victory

and the

last success against

Rome

were both

in

" the going down

" to


AHAB AND NABOTH.
horses, and

159

war

chariots

which he had

lost,

and commenced the cam-

paign the next year witli troops incomjiaraljiy superior in niunbcr to But God showed that lie could confound the blasthose of Ahab.

100,000 Syrians were cut to pieces phemies of the enemies of Israel. under the walls of Aphek, in the plain of Esdraelon, and Ben-hidri was forced to implore the clemency of the enemy whom he had so insolently defied.

Ahab, who could have made the king of Syria a

at liberty.

prisoner, did not

the guarantee of even confine himself to setting him an article, which gave him the right of keeping a garrison in Damascus, he concluded a treaty of intimate alliance, which insured Ben-hidri the A most valuable inscription assistance of Israelitish troops in his wars. of Shalmanezer IV.,* king of Assyria, discovered near the source of the Tigris and

Under

now

presei-ved in the British

Museum,

in relating a

defeat which that prince inflicted the next year on Ben-hidri, near the
city of

Karkar, mentions

the latter 10,000

men

of

among the troops who fought on the side of Ahab of Israel. A prophet severely rejiroached

Ahab

for this alliance

his hands,

with an infidel whom God had delivered into and threatened him with the Divine wrath; but he was not

heeded.
4.

horrible crime, into

which he was led by the queen Jezebel,

A man brought on Ahab a still more dreadful prophecy from Elijah. possessed a vineyard near to the palace of the named Naboth at Jezreel
king in

Ahab, desirous of joining that vineyard to his This was to garden, asked Naboth to sell it to him in perpetuity. introduce into the civil law a principle formally opposed to the Mosaic lav/, which did not permit the property of the soil to go for ever out of the hands of the family to whom it had lieen assigned at the conquest,
that
city.

but directed

its

return at the year of Jubilee.

Naboth,

faithful to the spirit of the law, refused to sell the inheritance

of his fathers: at this the king showed himself much aggrieved. Jezebel having learned the cause of his grief, consoled him by promising to give him the vineyard of Naboth. She sent orders in the king's name to the

Beth-horon, and even to the very

their

last day of Jewish independence, when "hold," Masada, fell before the Romans. We find, too, that though the Hebrews frequently assembled large bodies of infantiy, they were never strong in cavalry or war chariots a fact well known, and alluded to by the Rabshakeh, whom Sennacherib "I will deliver thee," said he, "2,000 horses, if sent to Hezekiah thou be able on thy ])art to set riders upon them." This whole subject is treated at length by Dean Stanley, Siiiai and Palestine, ch. ix. Tr. * This is the king who appears in Sir II. Rawlinson's list as Shalmanezer II. The cause of the difference between that high authority and the author will appear in the Book on the Assyrians. Tr.
;

"

l6o

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

liis

authorities of

city to accuse

false witnesses,

who swore

that Nabotli

Naboth of high treason. They brouglit had blasphemed God and the
Jezebel told her husband
to confiscate the

king; he was condemned and stoned to death.

of the death of

Naboth and persuaded him

property

of the condemned, in defiance of the precepts of the law. having gone to the vineyard of Naboth to take possession of prophet Elijah met him.

Ahab
it,

the

and also taken possession, "Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs said he to the king. licked the l:)lood of Naboth, they shall lick thy blood, even thine." " Hast thou found me, O mine enemy," said the king. " I have found thee," replied the prophet, "because thou hast sold thyself to do evil in Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will the sight of the Lord. make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, and the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel " (i Kings xxi. 19), 5. The accomplishment of the first part of this prophecy was not long Ben-hidri during the three years that had elapsed, since the delayed. treaty of peace had been concluded, after the battle at Aphek, had not Ramoth, one of the most important cities of executed its conventions. the land of Gilead or Persea, still remained in the hands of the Syrians. Ahab showed his intention of recommencing war against the king of Syria, and taking from him by force the city, he was not willing to surAt this time Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who since his accesrender. sion to the throne had profited Ijy the blessings of peace to continue his reforms in religious worship, and in the administration, had visited the king of Israel, with whom he had allied himself by marriage, his son Jehoram having married Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. This was the first time since the separation of the two kingdoms that a king of Judah showed himself as a friend and ally on the territory of Israel; and we may well be surprised to find peace between the kingdoms, and family ties between the courts, of the pious Jehoshaphat and the impious
Icilled

" Hast thou

Ahab.
It is possible that

Jehoshaphat hoped

to

work on the

facile

character

At the moment of marchof Ahab, and lead him to better sentiments. ing against the Syrians, Ahab expressed a wish that the king of Judah
should take part in the expedition. Jehoshaphat consented, and promised the assistance of his troops, on the condition that the king of Israel

Ahab brought together 400 of should at once consult the prophets. the gate of Samaria; they all with one voice declared that he them at
ought to go to the war, and that the king of Israel should return a But Jehoshaphat distrusted these 400 unajiimous voices; it conqueror.
did not seem possible that, after so many persecutions, the call of Ahab could assemble so many true prophets of Jehovah, to speak with sincerity

and independence.

At

his request

Micaiah was sent

for,

who had

not

JEHOSHAPHAT'S REFORMS.
previously been called, and

i6i

who announced

a terrible disaster, and the

Ramoth, and Jehoshaphat accompanied him there. The king of Israel, having learned that the Syrian officers had received orders to single him out personally for attack, disguised himself and mixed with the soldiers, whilst Jehoshaphat wore his royal robes. The Syrians, taking the latter for the king
death of Ahab.
nevertheless persisted in marching on

He

of Israel, directed their attack on him, and surrounded him.

Jehosha-

phat called for help, but the

at

officers of

Ben-hidri discovering their mistake

once retired. At the same time Ahab was mortally wounded by an arrow which a soldier had " shot at a venture"; he died at sunset, and The body of the king was carried the Israelite army at once retreated. His blood-stained chariot was washed to Samaria, where it was buried. in the pool at Samaria, and the words of Elijah were accomplished, His son Ahaziah sucthat the dogs should lick the blood of Ahab.

ceeded him.
6. Jehoshaphat returned to Jerusalem, when the prophet Jehu, son ot Hanani, blamed him mildly for having lent his help to the impious Ahab, which he said would have drawn on the king the wrath of Jehovah if he had not deserved the mercy of God, by exterminating Jehoshaphat continued to rule over his people idolatry in his kingdom. in the same spirit of piety, and to introduce notable improvements in the

administration; he reformed the tribunals in the principal cities of the

kingdom, directing them

Levites,

to observe

the greatest impartiality, and he

composed of Priests, and heads of families, as the last resort for difficult cases. After the example of Solomon, Jehoshaphat constructed vessels at Eziongeber, to recommence commercial expeditions to India, and especially to the land of Ophir, but he no longer had Phoenicians to man them, and the vessels being shipwrecked in the very gulf, quite close to Eziongeber, Jehoshaphat gave up the enterprise, in spite of the persuasions of Ahaziah, king of Israel, who wished to become his
established at Jerusalem a supreme court of appeal,
partner.
7. During the short reign of Ahaziah, which lasted hardly a year, Mesha, king of Moab, who, like his predecessors, had recognised the suzerainty of the king of Israel, refused to pay his tribute. He had formerly paid 100,000 lambs and roo,ooo rams, with their wool for the land of Moab had been at all times rich in flocks and herds, and is so to this day. A severe fall which Ahaziah had through the railing of the platform of the palace of Samaria, prevented him from taking measures Brought up in the worship of Baal and for subjecting the Moabites. in the superstitions of idolatry, Ahaziah sent messengers to Ekron, in
;

the land of the Philistines, to enquire of the celebrated oracle of Baal-

zebub what would be the

result of his

illness.

The prophet

Elijah,

indignant at this insult to the

God

of Israel, stopped the messengers of

i62

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

their way.

Ahaziah on

"

Is

it

not because there

is

not a

God

in Israel,"

said the prophet to them, " that ye

go to enquire of Baal-zebub the

God of Ekron ? Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from the bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely
This in fact soon happened, and as Ahaziah had no son, his brother Jehoram succeeded him, 898 B.C. 8. The new king of Israel confirmed the alliance his father had
i.

die " (2

Kings

3).

concluded with Jehoshaphat, and overthrew the worship of Baal, which

two predecessors had observed, but without, nevertheless, becoming law of God. Jehoram having requested help from Jehoshaphat against the Moabitish rebels, the king of Judah replied,
his
really faithful to the

"

am

as thou art,

my

people as thy people,

my

horses as thy horses."

Assisted also by the king of the Idumeans,a vassal of Jehoshaphat, the two
allies

to

gained a brilliant victory over the Moabites, whose king was obliged throw himself into a fortress. The king of Moab, in conformity with

the frightful superstition of

sacrificed his

many

oriental people, to propitiate the gods,

own

son on the wall, in the sight of the besiegers, who,

Elisha, the successor of Elijah,

struck with horror, raised the siege.

showed himself
Judah.

for the first

time in the

camp on

the occasion of this

war, and there promised success to the combined arms of Israel and

Some months after this, the Moabites, having found allies in the Ammonites, and having succeeded in enlisting the Idumcean tribes of Mount Seir, desirous of revenging themselves on Jehoshaphat who had assisted their enemy, suddenly invaded the land of Judah and penetrated as far as Engedi.

But a dispute having arisen as to the division

of the booty

among

the undisciplined hordes of invaders,

the Jewish troops to put

days, across the frontier.

them

to flight,

and to

was easy for drive them all, in four

it

After this event Jehoshaphat

still

reigned five

or six years in peace, blessed

by his subjects and respected by the neighJehoram,

bouring people

in the last years of his reign his eldest son

brother-in-law to Jehoram king of Israel (for the two

Hebrew kingdoms

head princes of the same name), took part in the Jehoshaphat died at the age of sixty years (891 B.C.), his people whom he had led back to the true principles of religion, and whom he had endowed with useful institutions, placed on his seven sons their fairest hopes for the future, which but too soon proved

had then
affairs

at

their

of state as co-regent.

false.

Jehoram, king of Judah, forgetful of the lessons of his father, aiid led by his wife, Athaliah, into the wicked ways of Ahab and Jezebel, commenced by the murder of his six brothers and of very many great personages, who probably did not share in his leaning towards PhoeniAs weak as he was cruel, he soon became an object of cian idolatry. contempt to his subjects, and did not know how to make his authority
g.

ELISHA AND HAZAEL.

respected abroad.

163

The Idumaans

revolted,

and

set

king, after having assassinated the Jewish vassal king.

up an independent Jehoram then

marched against the rebels, and obtained a success on the frontiers, but had not sufficient strength to reconquer Iduma-a, which remained independent. At the same time, the sacerdotal city Libnah, in the low country of Judcea, refused to obey the impious king. Hordes of Arabs from the south invaded the unfortunate land of Judah assisted by the Philistmes, they ravaged the country and pillaged the domains of the king, whose sons, with the exception of one named Jehoahaz, or Ahaziah, perished in the conflict. During this time serious dangers threatened the capital of the kingdom of Israel. War had been re-kindled between that kingdom and Damascus. Benhidri laid siege to Samaria; and the city, closely blockaded by the enemy, was reduced to such a fearful state of famine, that a mother killed and ate her own child.* Nevertheless, God was willing still to save the people of Israel and give them a great occasion to call to mind His wondrous works to themselves as well as to their fathers.
;

In conformity with a prediction of Elisha, the besieging army, having heard a miraculous noise, was seized with ]mnic; it fled away in the darkness of night, and the pillage of the
restored plenty to Samaria.
10. Elijah, before his

camp by

the Israelites at once

disappearance, had announced that the crown

of Israel was to be transferred to Jehu, one of the generals of Ahab and Jehoram and that of Damascus to Hazael, the chief councillor of
;

for the accomplishment of this double prophecy had come. Elisha went to Damascus, at a time when Ben-hidri was seriously ill. Informed of the arrival of the prophet, whose reputation was immense, he sent Hazael to him, to ask the issue of his illness (2 Kings viii. 10). "Go and say to him," replied Elisha, Thou mayest certainly recover howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die. " And after having pronounced these words, the prophet fixed for a long time his eyes on Hazael, with a look full of sorrow, and his eyes filled with tears. And Hazael said, " Why ?" And he answered, "Because I know the evil that weepeth my lord thou wilt do unto the children of Israel their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men thou wilt slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children." And Hazael said, "But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" And Elisha answered, "The Eord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria." The next day Hazael, impatient to realise the prophecy, suffocated Ben-hidri in his bed, by covering his face with a wet cloth. Having then mounted the throne of Damascus, he continued hostilities against
'
'

Ben-hidri.

The moment

* See Deut. xxviii.

5053, and Josephus,

JVars, vi., 3, 4.

i64
the

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

kingdom of Samaria.

At

the

same time Jehoram, king of Judah,

;

died at the age of forty years, after horrible suffering from a disease

His death excited no regret his body of the royal family, and refused the His son Ahaziah, aged twenty-two years, suchonours due to kings. ceeded him. Completely controlled by his mother, Athaliah, and by the advice of his relations of the family of Ahab, he persisted in the impious course of Jehoram, his father. His maternal uncle, Jehoram, king of Israel, persuaded him to take part in the new expedition he was about to make

which had lasted two

years.

was buried out of the sepulchre

RamothJehoram and Ahaziah went personally to the siege of that city. They managed to get possession of Ramoth but king Jehoram was seriously wounded, and obliged to retire to Jezreel. II. The prophet Elisha judged that the time had arrived for the revolution predicted by Elijah, since become even more necessaiy from the intimate alliance between the two kings of the Hebrew people, and their common tendency to Phcenician idolatry, which threatened to root
against the king of Syria, again to attempt the re-conquest of

Gilead.

out the worship of Jehovah.

Elisha sent one of his disciples secretly to

anoint Jehu as king of Israel. The disciple repaired to Ramoth, where Jehu was, with other captains of the army of Jehoram. No sooner had these officers, companions and friends of Jehu, learned the mission ol the prophet, than they solemnly proclaimed him who had been anointed king with sound of the trumpets, and caused him to be recognised by the whole army. Jehu marched at once on Jezreel, where Jehoram was lying sick of his wounds, and where Ahaziah had gone to visit him. Jehoram got into his chariot, and went out of the city to meet the approaching squadron, accompanied by Ahaziah. The two kings met Jehu near the field which had belonged to Naboth. " Is it peace ?" asked Jehoram of his former general. " What peace ?"

whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and many." Then Jehoram turned his horses and fled, exclaiming, " There is treachery, O Ahaziah." But at the same instant an arrow, shot by Jehu, pierced him between the shoulders, and stretched him dead in his chariot. Jehu ordered one of his followers to cast the body of Jehoram into the field of Naboth, to avenge the inthe

replied Jehu, " so long as

her witchcrafts are so

nocent blood shed by

Ahab and

Jezebel.

Ahaziah had taken

to flight.

Jehu ordered him

to

be pursued.

He was

overtaken near Ibleam,

mortally W'Ounded, and was carried to Megiddo, where he died. His body was taken to Jerusalem, and buried in the city of David. Jehu, pursuing his work of extermination, entered Jezreel. Lifting his eyes to the windows of the palace, he saw Jezebel, painted and adorned He caused her to be thrown with her best ornaments, looking out. window, and she was trodden under the feet of his horses. When from the
a
little

afterwards he ordered her to be buried, they found only the


ATHALIAH.
head, hands, and feet
;

165

the rest of her

body had been devoured by

they were massacred by
All
that remained

dogs, according to the prophecy of EUjah.

Seventy sons of

Ahab remained
all

at

Samaria

the people, and their heads sent to Jezreel.

the house of Ahab,

of

and the priests of Baal, perished. The statue of that deity was burnt, and his temple demolished and " made a draft house." But in spite of his zeal for Jehovah, Jehu did not even attempt to re-establish His worship in all its purity he allowed Jeroboam's golden calves to remain. The
the nobles of his court, his friends,
;

prophets, satisfied with their victory, and with the chastisement of the

impiety of the royal race, promised

continuance to his dynasty; but

they were unable to preserve the kingdom of Israel from the attacks

it

which menaced it from without, or to preserve for it that power which had latterly been on many occasions able to employ, thanks to the close alliance existing between the two courts of Samaria and JeniEvents, not less sanguinary, had taken place

salem.
at the same time in the Ahaziah died at the age of twenty-three years. As all the sons he left behind hnn were under age, Athaliah, his mother, found herself legally invested with the government, as their guardian, with the title of regent. But .she conceived the project of assuring the perpetuity of her power, and the final triumph of the worship of Baal at Jerusalem, by the extinction of the house of David. She did not shrink even from a frightful crime to attain that object, and caused all her grandsons, children of Ahaziah, to be slain

kingdom of Judah.

before her

own

eyes.

.She reigned for six years after that odious act,

in the

and Baal replaced Jehovah

worship of the

city of

David.

Section IV. The Kingdom.s of Judah and Israel, from the Reign of Athaliah to the Death of Azariah (886 758).

I.

Nevertheless, a

sister

of Ahaziah, Jehosheba, wife of the high

had saved one of these victims devoted to death by the ambition of Athaliah, Jelioash, only one year old. The child remained for six years concealed in the Temple, unknown to all except Jehoiada. But in the seventh year, the high priest assemliled in the Temple the Levites and the chiefs of the army, he told them that there still remained a son of Ahaziah, showed him to them, and made them swear to recognise and defend him. At this news, and at the sound of the
priest Jehoiada,

acclamations of the people,

who

saluted Jehoash, Athaliah ran

in,

but
;

was

at once seized by the orders of the high priest, her body, like that of Jezebel, was trodden under the

and put

to

death

feet of the horses.

At

the same time the people entered the temple of Baal, overturned his

i66
altars,

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

broke
in pieces his images,

and put Mattan, the high

priest of

Baal, to death before the altar.

priest Jehoiada,

Jehoash governed during his minority under the advice of the high who found him a docile pupil, giving good hopes of

When the king was of proper age, Jehoiada married him to two wives, by whom he had many children of both sexes. One of the first cares of the young prince was the restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem, which had been exposed to every sort of desecration under the preceding reigns. Jehoash directed
the firm establishment of the national worship.

money arising from redempand that they should also make special collections for the repairs of the Temple. 2. During this time the kingdom of Israel grew weaker under the dominion of Jehu. The bravery of that king, and the support he received from the order of prophets, could not protect the country from the invasion of the Syrians, who, led by their king Hazael, octhe priests to employ for that purpose the
tions

and voluntary

gifts,

cupied

all

the provinces situated east of the Jordan, and -there exercised

It evidently was to obtain support against these redoubtable enemies that Jehu humbly solicited the favour of Shalmanezer IV., king of Assyria. In the cuneiform

cruelties

which were long remembered.

inscriptions

Museum,

this last prince says,

on the "black obelisk," now preserved in the British "I received tribute from Jehu, son of
gold, plates of gold, cups of gold, vases of various kinds
;

Omri silver,

hand of the king " and one of the of the same monument shows Jehu prostrating himself, with
in gold, sceptres for the

bas-reliefs

his face to

the earth, before the Assyrian monarch, as

vassal.

if

acknowledging himself a

twenty-eighth year of his reign (858), leaving the throne to his son Jehoahaz.*
in the

Jehu died

Hazael continued his attacks on the kingdom of Israel, under its new was far from showing his father Jehu's zeal for the worship of Jehovah images of Ashtoreth were again seen even in Samaria. The army of Jehoahaz, decimated by continual battles, was reduced to 10,000 infantry, fifty horsemen, and ten war chariots. Nevertheless, with this feeble remnant, encouraged probably by the prophets, whose favour Jehoahaz managed to gain by his repentance, he contrived to hold the Syrian troops in check, and to re-establish tranquillity for a time. Jehoahaz died in the seventeenth year of his reign. His son Jehoash succeeded to the throne and so, for the second time, the two Hebrew kingdoms were under tiie government of princes of the same name.
prince, mIio
;

* The celebrity of Omri, the founder of Samaria, was such that the Assyrians believed that all the kings of Israel, as well as Jehu, were descended from him.

APOSTACY AND DEATH OF JEHOASTT.

3.

167

Jehoash, king of Judah, persevered in religious orthodoxy, in fidelity to the precepts of the law, and docility to the councils of the
sanctuary, so long as the high priest Jehoiada survived,

who

lived,

it is

The respect which Jehoiada had inspired said, to the age of 130 years. was so great, that he was buried in the royal sepulchre. But after the
death of the venerable high priest, the favourers of the Phoenician worship ventured again to hold up their heads, and Jehoash had the

weakness
prophets

to

show them culpable

up
their

toleration.

It

was

in vain that the

lifted

voices

the high priest

Zachariah, son of

Jehoiada, having dared one day, in the court of the Temple, to reproach the people with this defection, and to menace them with Divine chastisement,

was stoned by order of the ungrateful king, and expired, The Lord look upon it and require it" (2 Chron. xxiv. 22). In the chastisement of Jehovah was not, in fact, long delayed. The Hazael having penetrated with his army as far as Gath, year following, which he conquered, threatened to besiege Jerusalem; and the weak Jehoash could only escape from his enemies by paying to the king of Syria a disgraceful tribute, for which he employed the treasures of the Temple. This event caused a conspiracy to bi-eak out, contrived, it may be, by the priests, who wished to avenge the death of Zachariah. Jehoash was assassinated by two of his servants, after an inglorious
crying out, "
reign,

which had lasted

forty years (839).

He

v\as refused burial in the

royal sepulchre.

made

Amaziah, son of Jehoash, reigned next, for twenty-nine years he himself, no doubt, agreeable to the priests and prophets, by
;

dealing severely with the partisans of the Phoenician worship, for the only accusation brought against him is, that he allowed the irregular
sanctuaries of the high places
tlu-one,
still

to exist.

As soon

as he

was

firm

on

he punished with death the murderers of his father; but he his is praised for the pardon which, in conformity with the Mosaic law, he extended to the children of the guilty (2 Chron. xxv. 4). An expedi-

he undertook against the Iduma^ans, was crowned with Ijrilliant success; after having vanquished them in battle, he possessed himself of their capital, Sela, which, in later times, was called by tlie Greeks
tion,

Petm.
4.

Aljout the

same epoch Jehoash, king

of Israel, gained equally

signal advantages over the Syrians.

Hazael had died at a very advanced name who is mentioned in Jehoash, encouraged by the last dying the Bible, had succeeded him. words of the prophet Elisha, atUcked and defeated Ben-hidri, and took from him all the cities which Hazael had taken from Jehoahaz. But he
age, and his son Ben-hidri, the third of the
in the midst of these successes by the incursions of some Moabitish bands, which caused him much disquiet; afterwards war broke out between him and Amaziah, king of Judah. The troops of

was arrested

i68
tlic latter

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

were
totally defeated

and put to flight, and Amaziah fell alive Jehoash marched at once on Jerusalem, and entered it through a breach in the wall ; he carried off the treasures that remained in the Temple and in the king's palace, and returned to Samaria, taking with him numerous hostages, probably in exchange for Amazlali, whom he released. Scripture represents this misfortune of as the just punishment of his infidelity to Jehovali, for it Amaziah accuses him of having woi-shipped the deities of the Idumajans, after the victory which he had gained over that people, and of threatening the projihet who ventured to reprimand him.
into the hands of his enemies.

Jehoash, king of Israel, died in the sixteenth year of his reign (827),
leaving as successor his son Jeroboam II.

Some

years after this (8io),

was assassinated at Lachish, where he had taken refuge from conspirators; his body was brought to Jerusalem, and buried in the sepulchre of the kings. 51 Uzziah, otherwise called Azariah, his son and successor, whose accession was hailed with joy by all the people, calmed the disorders of parties, and promised Judali a time of good fortune and power. The young king displayed much attachment to the worship of Jehovah, and it appears that a prophet, named Zechariah, exercised a most happy
like his father,

Amaziah,

influence over him.

In the early years of his reign he secured the submission of the Idumseans, by retaking and fortifying the city of Elath, on the Elanitic Gulf. He also made conquests over the Philisretook Gath, and even possessed himself of Ashdod, which he He subdued lastly the Ammonites, whom he made to pay

tines,

fortified.

tribute, as well as the

Arabs of Gurbaal.

In spite of his warlike character, Uzziah did not the less favour the arts of peace whilst he renewed and augmented the defences of all the cities of his kingdom, he actively encouraged the progress of agriculture,
;

a number of agricultural labourers and vine His flocks covered the plains ; in those parts of the deserts suitable for pasture he had many cisterns dug, and liuilt towers to His reign, which lasted nearly fifty-two years, protect the shepherds. was one of the most glorious in the history of the Hebrews. But towards the close of his reign, Uzziah, puffed up by his military successes and his prosperity, attempted the same usurpation as Saul. He wished, in contempt of the law, and in spite of the protests of the priests, to assume sacerdotal functions. He was suddenly stmck with moment when he was himself offering incense at the leprosy, at the He was obliged, king though he was, to shut himself altar of incense. up, in confonnity with the Mosaic ordinances ; and this prince was condemned to end his days in the most complete isolation. His son Jotham became regent. 6. The kingdom of Israel had again become very powerful under

and had
dressers.

in his service

PROSPERITY OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL.

Jeroboam
II.,

169

who, following up the success obtained by his father over own territory, and made conquests in the neighbourhood of Damascus and Hamath. It appears even from a passage in the Book of Kings (2 Kings xiv. 28) that the Israelites occupied these two cities for some time. All the country east of the Jordan, from Hamath to the Dead Sea, was again brought under the dominion
the Syrians, attacked them on their

of the king of Samaria.

tribe of Zebulon,

The prophet Jonah, son

of Amittai, of the

had encouraged king Jeroboam to this war, and predicted its complete success. This sudden good fortune of the kingdom of Israel introduced into it riches and luxury, and all the evils of corrupt society were soon to be seen there. The prophet Amos, a simple shepherd of Tekoa, in the land of Judah, presented himself at Bethel, and in language full of energy, boldness, and ardent zeal for truth and justice, reproached Israel for the worship of the images at Bethel and Dan, their effeminacy and licentious luxury, and the injustice and oppression to which they subjected the poor he threatened Jeroboam and the nobles of Samaria with the anger of heaven, and in the midst of their careless security he unfolded to them the distant prospect of exile and death. Already the Assyrian power was menacing, and all Western Asia trembled at the news of its rapid progress. Amaziah, high priest of
;

Bethel, desired

Jeroboam

to put

Amos

to death

but the king confined

himself to expelling the prophet from his

.

territories.

7. From this time, especially, the noblest development of prophecy commences. Protesting against idolatry, and even against too strong an attachment to the purely exterior forms of the worship of Jehovah,

against the corruption of morals, the faults or tyranny of kings;

the

prophets were at once preachers and political orators.

Spirit of

Inspired by the

began to predict announce in the most precise terms the advent of the Saviour promised to Israel and to all
to
future, they
to

God, who unveiled

them the

the splendors of the

new

Jerusalem, and

nations.

Together with Amos there was the prophet Joel, the son of Pethuel, whose predictions have come downi to us. And at the same time, Isaiah began to prophesy, whose writings were deposited in the Temple The words of this at Jerusalem, and preserved with religious care.
great prophet point above
all

to the promised and expected Messiah:

servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles" (xlii. i). " He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant

"Behold my
;

justify

he shall bear their iniquities'' (liii. 11). "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness
for

many;

the people

but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be


I70

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

come
to iliy
lit^lit,

And the Gentiles shall the brightness of thy rising " (Ix. 13).
seen upon thee.
8.

and

kinjjs to

dates of

Jeroboam 11. died in the forty-first year of his reign (784), and tlie tlie Book of Kings leave us to infer that liis son Zachariah did
till

not ascend the throne

eleven or twelve years after (773).

It is

pro-

death of Jeroboam the kingdom of Israel was divided by factions; either Zachariah was too young to reign, or he was too weak to put down the seditious, who disputed the throne with him, or bable that
at the

wished
says,

to annihilate royalty.

The words

of the prophet Hosea,

partly belongs to this epoch, confirm these suppositions.

who The prophet

"Their

heart

is

divided;

now

shall they

be found faulty; he shall

break down their

shall say,

altars,

he shall spoil their images.

For now they

;

have no king, because we feared not the Lord what then should a king do to us? They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the
:

We

furrows of the field" (Hos.

x. 2).

Zachariah at

last established

himself on the throne of his father, in

the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah, but he reigned only six months. rebel, named Shallum, son of Jabesh,

presence of the people, probably during a riot, and possessed himself of the throne. Thus ended in its turn the dynasty
assassinated
in the

him

of Jehu; for none of those families,

to the throne of Israel, could ever
tions.

who

successively raised themselves

it

for more than a few generaShallum only maintained himself for a month. Menahem, son of Gadi, who commanded the army, and was then at Tirzah, marched

keep

against him, and, having taken Samaria, slew the assassin of the king,

ascended the throne, and

not recognised
the
Pul,

sat

there for ten years.

all

town named

Tiphsah, situated, according to

appearances, near Tirzah, which had

Menahem

as king,

was taken by storm, and punished by

new king with

the most implacable cruelty.

king of Chaldsea and Assyria, then invaded Syria and Menahem, unable to fight against so powerful an enemy, extorted from the country 1,000 talents, or three
9.

threatened the kingdom of Israel.

millions of shekels of

and thus ransomed his army shows that it numbered 60,000 men.* In return for this humiliation, which recalls to us that of Jehu before Shalmaneser, Pul consented to withdraw his troops, and to give his powerful assistance to Menahem, against those internal enemies who contested his possession of the usurped throne. But such conduct could onlv augment the hatred of the nation to
silvei-,

to give to Pul,

at

the price of

fifty

shekels

of silver

a head, which

* It seems, however, doubtful whether the sum of fifty shekels was not the amount extorted from each individual rather than the ransom given for each soldier. Tr.


THE ASSYRIANS
Menahem and
his

IN PALESTINE.

171

His son Pekaliiah succeeded him in the Judah (761). After two son of RemaUah, with fifty men of years one of his officers, Pekah, Gilead, formed a conspiracy against and assassinated him in the palace The After this crime, Pekah ascended the throne. of Samaria (759). of this period of prophet llosea unfolds to our eyes a dark picture anarchy and crime. "The Lord," says he, " liath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken the fowls of heaven "They all are hot as an oven, and have iv. I 4). away" (Hos. there is none among all their kings are fallen their judges devoured upon me" (vii. 7). "They have set up kings, but them that calleth
family.
fiftieth year of the reign of Uzziah, king of
;

not by

me

they have

made

princes,

and

knew

it

not

of their

silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut Towards the end of the second year of Pekah (758), off" (viii. 4). Uzziah, king of Judah, died in the hospital at Jerusalem, to which he had been compelled to retire, at the age of sixty-eight, and after a reign of His son jotham, the regent, succeeded him. fifty-two years.

Section V.

Intervention of the Assyrians in Palestine. Decline of the Kingdom of Israel and Fall of Samaria.
(758-721)=

I.

Jotham, who

at the

age of twenty- five years succeeded his father

on the throne of Judah, distinguished himself by his energy and piety, and his reign was one of the happiest in the annals of Judah. The Bible nevertheless blames him for having allowed the high places still to To the fortifiexist, and permitting the people to offer sacrifices there. others as a preparation for the cations erected by his father, he added dangers threatening the land. He restored the Temple, and erected some
important works
at

Jerusalem.

He

fought with success against the

Ammonites, and compelled them during three years to pay a considerable During this time internal disorders, occasioned by the conflicttribute.
ing claims of
ever in the
less
first

many

competitors for the throne, continued as violent as

kingdom of Israel. The Book of Kings assigns eight years for the reign of Pekah than the period which elapsed between his But this strange circumstance accession to the throne and his death.


172
is

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

explained by tlic Assyrian inscriptions,* the historical bearing of which was first pointed out by M. Oppert. It is found that the reign of Pekah was interrupted for more than seven years; that about 742 he was deposed by a second Menahem, probably a son of Pekahiah, who was placed on the throne by Tiglath-pileser II., king of Assyria,
to

whom

he paid tribute as a vassal.

throned him and restored Pekah. The Assyrians, whose vassal he had dethroned,

In 733 a new revolution delatter, openly hostile to the

made an alliance with Resin, Damascus. These two princes, even in the time of Pekah's first king of reign, had formed the project of overturning the throne of the house of David and installing as king in Jerusalem a certain Ben Tabeal, a creature of their own,f in order, probably, to oppose a more compact force to the Assyrians; but the wise measures of Jotham did not permit them to carry their project into execution. Unfortunately, however, Jotham died, after a reign of sixteen years, when he was hardly fortytwo years old (742). 2. His son and successor, Ahaz, a young man about twenty years of He, by his own age, possessed none of his father's good qualities. example, encouraged Phoenician idolatry; he erected statues of Baal, and went so far as even to take part in the abominable worship of Moloch, by making his son pass through the fire in the valley of Hinnom. Weak and timid, he could not compel the respect of his powerful neighbours; in the very beginning of his reign, Pekah and Resin invaded the land of Judah, and Jerusalem was threatened with a Ahaz resolved to throw himself into the arms of the king of siege. The prophet Assyria, and to purchase his help by a disgraceful tribute. Isaiah in vain attempted to deter him by advice and threats. The danger passed away from Jerusalem itself, but Pekah inflicted Carrying out, then, his unpatriotic serious losses on the troops of Ahaz. project, the king of Judah called in to his assistance Tiglath-pileser, whose protection he purchased with the treasures of the Temple and of
'

the palace.

The Assyrian monarch, always anxious

of adopting
that

for

new

conquests,

and desirous Palestine had been the

policy of his

predecessors of which
wait long.

oljject,

did not

make him

Pie in-

vaded the kingdom of Damascus, took the capital, killed Resin, and united the states that prince had governed to his own vast empire. A great part of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Damascus were trans-

Layard, Cuneiform
ii.,

Inscriptions, plate 50.

Cuneiform Inscriptions

of Western Asia, vol.

plate 67.

+ This project seems to have been conceived and even attempted in the time of Jotham, but more fully carried out after the accession of Ahaz. Compare 2 Kings xv. 37, and Isaiah vii. i 6. Tr,


AHAZ AND HEZEKIAH.
ported into Armenia, to
Tiglatli-pileser penetrated
tlie

173

banks of

tlic

river

Cyrus*

From

Syria

into

the land of Israel,

and occupied the

whole of Galilee and Perrea, whence he transported the principal inhaThis was the commencement of the captivity of the ten tribes, and the kingdom of Israel was henceforth confined to the limits of the small tract around Samaria. Pekah, the king, was shortly after assassinated, the victim of a conspiracy, at the head of which was Hoshea, son of lilah, who wished to place himself on the
bitants to Assyria (732).

throne.

Ahaz
vassal.

visited the

king of Assyria at Damascus, to pay homage as a

On

this occasion,
it

having seen the great altar at Damascus, he

Urijah at Jerusalem, ordering
in

sent the pattern of

to the high priest

him

to set

up a similar one

the court of the Temple. f

The new

charged with idolatrous symbols, replaced that which Solomon had constructed. Not content with this profanation, Ahaz, on his
altar,

return to Jerusalem, set up altars everywhere to .Syrian deities, and ended by entirely closing the sanctuary of the true God. He had, however, no cause to congratulate himself on the Assyrian alliance, which he had so dearly purchased, and he soon found how galling were the bonds of vassalage he had voluntarily assumed. The Idumreans made incursions into the territory of Judah, for the purpose of pillage. At the same time the Philistines, profiting by the weakness of Ahaz, took some important cities. Ahaz died in the sixteenth year of his reign (727) though still yoimg, he was not regretted, and was
;

refused

even

the

honours of royal sepulture.

He

left,

in

his son

Hezekiah, a successor

who

afforded the brightest hopes to the king-

dom.
David.

In his earliest years, the prophet Isaiah had announced him as a

saviour to Judah,

who

should re-establish the renown of the house of

Hezekiah exhibited in every respect the most complete contrast to he manifested the most ardent zeal for religion, from the moment of his accession to the throne; he re-opened the Temple, which had been closed by Ahaz. Everywhere the statues of Phoenician divinities were broken in pieces, and he even suppressed the high places, where worship, although addressed to Jehovah, was in illegal rivalry with the central sanctuary, and contrary to the prescriptions of Wishing to destroy all that could give occasion for the Mosaic law.
3.

his father

full dethe Kur, between the Caspian and Black Seas. of this river and district is given in Sir R. Ker Porter's Travels, vol. i., 107 113. Tr. t The majority of Assyrian altars, however, seem to have been free from emblems of any kind. Some of them were square, ornamented with gradines ; others triangular, with circular tops. One of the latter deTr. scription, discovered by Mr. Layard, is in the British Museum.

Now

scription


17+

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

to set

broke in pieces the brazen serpent wliich Moses had up in the desert, and which had become the object of superstitious worship to the people. The first Passover after tlie accession of Hezekiah was celelirated with extraordinary solemnity; the king sent messengers to Samaria, and to all that reniaineil of the kingdom of Judah, to invite the attendance of all who were still
idolatry, Ilezekiah

made

faithful to the

law of the Lord.

A.

small

number did come

to Jeru-

salem, but the

majority of the population insulted and

maltreated

Hezekiali's messengers.

Completing

his reforms,

the pious king re-

organised the body of priests and Levites, under the auspices of the

high priest Azariah.

hour of the kingdom of Samaria was (2 Kings xvii. 7), "that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them out of the land of Egypt." Ver. 16, 17 "And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and
4.

During

this

time the

last
it

fast

approaching.

"For

so

was," says Scripture

images, even two calves, and made a grove, and And they caused worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of In vain had the prophets multithe Lord, to provoke him to anger." plied their warnings, Israel had remained deaf to all threats and even the invasion of the king of Assyria, carrying into captivity a part of the people, had not led the rest of them to repentance. The day of Divine chastisement, therefore, had at last arrived. Hoshea, the assassin of Pekah, had succeeded in mounting the throne, three years before the accession of Hezekiah (730) he was a vassal of the king of Assyria, and paid tribute to Shalmaneser VII.,* successor We know from the writings of the prophets of of Tiglath-pileser. epoch, that in the kingdom of Israel, as well as in that of Judah, this there were always advocates of an alliance with Egypt, then governed by the warlike Shebek, the So of the Bible, who alone seemed able to oppose the invasions of Assyria, and who himself was interested in keeping at a distance from his frontiers a power whose thirst for foreign

made them molten

conquest seemed unable to confine

trusted such an alliance,

itself to

Asia.

The
a

prophets dissafety.

and expressed

their disapprobation with energy.

it

King Hoshea,

nevertheless, expected to find in

means of

He

signed a treaty with So, and immediately refused his tribute to the

king of Assyria. Shalmaneser, at this news, burst like a thunderbolt on the land of Israel, seized Hoshea and threw him into prison, occupied the whole country, and laid siege to Samaria, the capital, where
* Shalmaneser
List of Assyrian

Kings

IV., according to Sir H. Rawlinson. at the end of Book IV.

See Tabular

FALL OF SAMARIA.
selves (723).
attacks,

175

the turbulent and warlike Ephraimite aristocracy had fortified them-

Samaria made an obstinate resistance to the enemy's nnd the siege operations were at length relaxed on the part of the Assyrians, and turned into a blockade. Important events had in fact occurred at Nineveh ; Shalmaneser was dead, and Sargon had usurped

power. At last, in the third year of the siege, the new king came himself to Samaria; he renewed the operations with vigor, and the
last

bulwark of

Israelitish

independence was swept away (721).

Ac-

cording to the practice constantly adopted by the Assyrian conquerors

for apprehension, especially the

who could give any cause and warlike, were compelled to emigrate, and the conquered country was re-peopled successively under Sargon and his successors, by different races of the vast Assyrian
of that epoch,
all

the principal inhabitants

rich

empire, chiefly from Chaldgea.

At

the

moment when

the

kingdom of

Israel thus fell a victim to

and to false policy, the kingdom of Judah was reanimated with new life under king Hezekiah. There, in spite of the failings of verj' many kings, and of a portion of the people, the central sanctuary and the dynasty of David had always withstood the inaiption of the irreligion, and of the political passions which had proved so disastrous to Israel. The prophets were more listened to, the priests exercised a greater influence, and both the State and David's dynasty had owed to them their safety in the perilous days of Athaliah. Israel had but a few days of greatness and happiness under king Jeroboam XL, whilst Judah enjoyed long years of glory and prosperity under the happy reigns of Asa, Jehoshaphat and Uzziah. Besides, the geographical position of Judah was much more advantageous, and Jerusalem above all occupied a very defensible
internal strife, to military revolutions,

position.*

Sargon did not attempt to subdue the kingdom of Judah Samaria marched with all speed to the land of the Philistines, there to meet Shebek, king of Egypt, who, not having been able to come soon enough to save Israel, entered Palestine at that moment. After having vanquished him at Raphia, and compelled the Philistine cities
;

taken, he

to

obedience, the Assyrian conqueror, retracing his steps, penetrated

into Phoenicia,

where he took

all

the cities with the exception of Tyre.

left

But, occupied by these conquests, he

Hezekiah and the kingdom of

Judah

in tranquillity.

* See

Bernhardi.
jfiuice

Ccnuiientatio de caiisis qiiibus effectum

Re'^mini
1825.

diiUiiis

permaiuret quain Regiiiim Israel.

sit ut Louvain,


176

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The Kingdom of Judah, from the Capture of Samaria to the Battle of Megiddo (721610).
historical

Section VI.

1.

The

books of

tlie Bil)le

tell

us nothing of

what passed

in the kingdom of Judah during the twenty years of profound peace which Hezekiah enjoyed after tlie terror the conquest of Samaria by Sargon and the establishment of Assyrian garrisons on the very frontiers

of his state must have caused him.

But the writings of the jirophet

Isaiah give us a lively picture of the moral and political condition of

the people of Judah at this period of their history.

Happy

in its king,

and

trusting surely in the valour of

its

soldiers, Judaea

was nevertheless

troubled by the intrigues of a party who, instead of seeking safety in

piety and faith in Jehovah, breathed only war, and counted on the

which the prophet pronounced useless, and even dangerous, to Judah. This party, numbering in its ranks important personages, and even priests and prophets, misconceived the true spiritual sense of the religious precepts of the law, and attached It abandoned itself to itself almost entirely to outward observances. the indulgence of its passions, violated right, and oppressed the people.
chariots and horses of Egypt,

The
2.

land, said

Isaiah,

can never enjoy real happiness

till

God has

punished these impious people with exemplary chastisement.

In spite of the influence which Isaiah exercised over king Hezekiah, the party for war at any price, and for an Egyptian alliance,
prevailed at the court of Jerusalem,

Babylon separated from

his

when in 704 Sargon died, leaving kingdom by a most serious revolt. All the

nations of Palestine thought to find in this change of masters a favourable opportunity for throwing off the Assyrian yoke.
tion of their princes

general coali-

was organised under the auspices and with the

concurrence of the Ethiopian Shabatok, the Sethos of Herodotus,

then reigned over Egypt.
nicia,

who

The

petty sovereigns of the cities of Pho;-

and of the

Philistine towns, the kings of

Ammon, Moab, and

Edom,

all at the same time refused tribute, and allied themselves with. Hezekiah who opened hostilities by taking Migron,* a town of the tribe of Benjamin, on the frontier of the former kingdom of Israel, which Sargon had detached from the kingdom of Judah, and where he had installed one of his own creatures with the title of king. But the new king who was about to mount the throne of Assyria was the terrible Sennacherib. He allowed more than three years to elapse before he came to chastise the audacity of the princes of Pales-

tine,

being occupied in putting

down

the insurrections of the Chaldsean

* It

Ekron.

must be mentioned that Sir H. Rawlinson reads See note to Book iv., chap, iii., sec. 3, 2. Tk.

this

name

INVASION OF SENNACHERIB.
Merodach Baladan, and
in reducing

177

Babylon to obedience, and afterhad been manifested in the turbulent provinces situated to the north and east of Assyria. But as soon as he was thus well secured against all chance of insurrections, which, breaking out in his rear, might compel him to retrace his steps after reaching the territory of Palestine, he marched on that country He threw himself first on at the head of all the forces of his empire. Phoenicia, defeated Luliya (Eululjeus) king of Tyre, who had then the All submitted to him, and suzerainty over the other Phoenician cities. Moab and Edom hastened to use a the terrified kings of Amnion, modern Oriental expression to beg A maun without having attempted Sennacherib, advancing by the sea coast, entered the countiy to fight. of the Philistines, whom he crushed; defeated in their territory an Egyptian army advancing to help them, and finally arrived at Migron, where he re-established the prince, his creature, whom Hezekiah had
wards
in repressing the desire for revolt that

dethroned.
3.

Hezekiah was
it is

left

alone after the defeat of his

allies.
is

From

this

time

that the Bible narrative

commences,

for

it

silent as to the

kingdom of Judah by Sennaand it is only from the inscriptions of the Assyrian king that we have been able to relate them.* Sennacherib, according to the Book of Kings, which here completely agrees with the inscribed monuments of Assyria, invaded the territory of Judah, possessed himself successively
events which led to the invasion of the
cherib,

away a considerable part of its people into came in person to Jerusalem. Hezekiah, to save his capital and the Temple from the profanation with which they were menaced by Sennacherib's army, humbled himself before the king of Assyria, who imposed on him a tribute of 30 talents
of
all
its

fortresses,

led

captivity,

and

at

last

of

gold and 300 talents of

silver.

To pay

this,

Hezekiah cut

oft

even the gold which covered the doors of the Temple, probaljly with
the'

sufficient to

wish of making the Assyrians believe that his treasury was not pay so considerable a sum, and that nothing more was possible, for, less than a year after, he was found making a parade of Babylonian ambassadors.
Sennacherib
left,

his treasures before the

after

having received

this tribute, to press the siege of the very strong

fortress of Lachish, in the plain country of

forced to surrender.
far as Pelusium,

At the same time

frontiers of

his outposts

Judah, which was soon were advanced as

on the

Egypt, for he intended to invade that

country after having completed the subjugation of Judaea.

But while encamped before Lachish, Sennacherib conceived the idea it would be imprudent, just when he was about to march into Egypt, to leave behind him a city so important as Jerusalem without securing it
that
* See

Oppert, Les

Inscriptions des Sargonides, p. 44, seq.

I7S

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

gan-ison.

therefore sent a strong body of troops to reduce the Hezekiah decided on resistance by the advice of Isaiah, who had regained his legitimate ascendancy over him, and
capital of Judah.

by a

He

neglected nothing to

jnit Jerusalem into a defensible state. He covered might furnish the assailants with water, repaired the walls wherever there were breaches, demolished the houses likely to interfere with the defence, and diverted the water of the fountain of

up the springs

that

Siloam into the city. Very soon the general-in-chief of the Assyrian army (Tartan), the grand cupbearer of the king (Rab-shakeh), and the chief of the eunuchs (Rab Saris),* presented themselves before the walls, bearing the summons of Sennacherib. Hezekiah sent three officers to confer with them. The grand cupbearer spoke, and in haughty language ridiculed the plans for defence, and the bravery which the king of Judah boasted of, and called Egypt, whence Hezekiah expected aid, a bruised reed, which could only wound the hand that should lean on it. " But if ye say unto me," he added, "We trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and to Jeresalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Now therefore give pledges to my lord, the king of Jerusalem. Assyria, and I will deliver to thee 2,000 horses if thou be able on thy * * part to set riders on them. I now come up without the Lord againrit this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it." The servants of Hezekiah asked him speak in Syriac, so as not to be understood by the people who were to on the wall, but the Assyrian replied that it was precisely to those men who were in danger of dying of hunger and thirst that his words were addressed then raising his voice he spoke to the soldiers of Hezekiah in the Hebrew tongue, saying that their king was deceiving them, and that he had no power to save them ; that the king of Assyria, on the other hand, offered them good fortune and tranquillity, and would lead them away to a land more fertile than their own, and moreover that Jehovah would no more save them than other gods had saved their own This speech was listened to in profound silence, Hezekiah countries. having forbidden any reply. Hezekiah and the people went into the Temple, with their clothes rent, to prostrate themselves before Jehovah, and implore His compasIsaiah encouraged them, promising them in the name of God a sion.

Am

speedy deliverance.

Nevertheless Sennacherib, having taken Lachish,

his

had encamped

at

Libnah on

way

to Jerusalem.

He

there learned

* Most histories consider these as three personages, whom they call Tartan, Rab-shakeh and Rabsaris, taking their titles for proper names.


DESTRUCTION OF THE ASSYRIAN ARMY.
with the
179

the approach of Tirhakah, prince royal of Ethiopia and Egypt, entrusted

command

of the

army by Sabatok, the

king,

who,

at the

head

of a nimierous body of troops, recruited chiefly on the borders of the

advanced along the Delta, and was preparing to enter The position of Sennacherib might have become very perilous if Tirhakah had attacked him before In this position of he had completely subdued the kingdom of Judah. affairs he resolved to hasten the attack on Jerusalem, and sent to Hezekiah a new summons still more imperative than the fomier, and which left him hardly a few days for consideration. The king read the letter, and went to the Temple and addressed a fervent prayer to the Lord, asking Him to avenge the outrage done to His name. Then Isaiah, filled with Divine inspiration, announced to the king and people that Jehovah had heard his prayer, and that very soon Sion and Jerusalem would regard with scorn the humbled pride of Sennacherib, and that he should not even attempt to besiege Jerusalem. In fact, in the following night " the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred and four score and five thousand " (2 Kings xix. 35), killed by the plague, which suddenly broke out in the midst of the army.* With troops thus thinned by disease, Sennacherib could no longer think of taking Jerusalem, nor of making head against the numerous and fresh army Tirhakah was bringing up he hastily gave orders to retreat, and during the remainder of his reign did not again appear in Palestine. Hezekiah again took possession of his devastated territoiy, and even of a number of the cities of Ephraim formerly belonging to the kingdom of Israel; and which, throwing off the Assyrian yoke, gave themselves up to him. As for the Egyptians, content with being no longer threatened, they do not appear to have pursued Sennacherib in his retreat, and they allowed him to retain
Nile,
Palestine, there to engage the Assyrians.
;

Upper

possession of the land of the Philistines as far as Gaza.

When

Herodotus

visited

Egypt

the

priests

related to

him

this

miraculous event, which had saved that country as well as the kingdom
of Judah from an Assyrian invasion, only, as was natural, they attributed

the prodigy to the power of their

own gods (Her. ii. 141). Judah was delivered from the Assyrians but the army of Seima4. cherib in its retreat had left the plague, as a last scourge, behind it. Hezekiah was attacked, and his life was despaired of. The pious king implored the Lord with tears, begging to live long enough to have an heir who might ensure to the house of David the succession to the crown. God heard his prayer, and Isaiah was commissioned to announce
;

* It has been suggested that the number recorded as slain in the Assyrian camp may be read as 100 -f So -|- 5,000 5,180, instead of 185,000 as usually understood. Tr.

iSo
to the

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

king his speedy recovery, in spite of the progixistications of his

physicians.

Tlie clieck which .Sennacherib

all

had sustained had spread throughout

Asia the renown of the kingdom of Judali, the only one to escape

the redoubtable conqueror before

whom

all

trembled.

So

that before

long ambassadors arrived at Jerusalem from Merodach-Baladan, who had revolted at Babylon against the Assyrian yoke, and expected an immediate attack from Sennacherib.

They came under

the pretext of con-

gratulating Hezekiah on his recoveiy,

alliance against the

but in reality to propose an

this pro-

common enemy.

Hezekiah, flattered by

ceeding, with most imprudent vanity exhibited to the envoys of the

Babylonian prince his treasures, magazines and arsenals. Isaiah, the constant counsellor of the king, knew the fresh dangers to which an alliance with the Babylonian insurgents might expose the kingdom, and enlightened by prophetic foresight said to the king, " Behold the days

and that which thy fathers have laid store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon nothing shall be And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which left, saith the Lord. thou shall beget, they shall take away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." The decisive defeat of Merodach-. Baladan, only a few months later, did not, moreover, permit Hezekiah to can-y out the desire which he seems to have had to listen to these

come up in

that all that

is

in thy house,

proposals.
5.

Hezekiah passed the

rest of his

life

in

endeavouring to repair the numberless

cherib
great

evils

profound peace and in which the amiy of Senna-

had

left

behind
levied

it.

He

amassed, as provision for the future,

troops,

treasures,

numerous

established

magazines and

Three years after he named Manasseh, and who appears to have been associated with him on the throne from the time of his birth, for the Book of Kings counts the years of his reign from that time (697). Under the reign of Hezekiah, Hebrew literature, which had declined since the epoch of Solomon, received a fresh impulse, and this became
arsenals,
rebuilt the fortifications of his cities.

and

the Assyrian invasion his wife gave

him a

son,

whom

the golden age of prophetic poetry.

By

the side of Isaiah

we

find, at

the court of the king, the prophet Micah, of Moresheth, near Gath.
It

most probably was towards the end of the reign of Hezekiah that Nahum pronounced the sublime prophecy, in which, at the very moment of the most brilliant prosperity of Nineveh, he announced its approaching ruin. A passage in the Book of Proverbs (Prov. xxv. i), gives us to understand that Hezekiah established a sort of academy, charged with collecting and arranging ancient literary remains, and The beautiful poem especially the proverbs attributed to Solomon. composed by Hezekiah after his sickness, entitles the king to be reckoned

MANASSEH'S IDOLATRY.
among
the best poets of the period.

l8i
at the

Hezckiah died

four years, in the forty-first year of his reign (685).*

age of fiftyHis funeral was

celebrated with great

people.
6.

pomp, and amidst the

universal regrets of his

Manasseh was but twelve years old when he ascended the throne

of his father Hezekiah, 685. The prophet Isaiah was now too old to exercise a serious influence over the affairs of the country and the
destinies of the

young

prince.

The

anti-religious party,

who found

strong support in the evil passions of the masses, and

whom

Hezekiah

had been able

again
lifted its

to put

down

for

a time, but not to subdue permanently,

head, succeeded in influencing the young king, and gave

itself up to disorders all

the more assiduously that it had to revenge on the and prophets the severe restrictions from which it had suffered, and wished now to end for ever. It was under the influence of this party that Manasseh was educated, for in no other way can be explained the terrible reaction which took place under the son of the pious Hezekiah. Manasseh combined in himself the impiety of Ahab and the cruelty of Jezebel. He re-established the worship of Baal and of Ashtaroth, and even in the courts of the Temple he erected altars
priests

dedicated to the worship of the

stars.

At

the entry of the

Temple

were horses and chariots, emblems of the god Baal, considered as the sun; and the sanctuary was profaned by the abominable mysteries of Ashtaroth, celebrated by debauchery. Manasseh made his son pass through the fire in honour of Moloch, and gave himself up to all sorts of evil and superstitious practices, such as divination and necromancy.

Many prophets

ventured to raise their voices against these abominations,

and to predict for Jerusalem and for Manasseh the fate of Samaria and of the house of Ahab but they were not heeded, and death was the reward of their devotion; for Manasseh, says Scripture, "shed innocent blood very mucli, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to
;

another."

tradition of the sjTiagogue, adopted

by the

early fathers, says that

Isaiah was

among

the nmiiber of the martyrs of this epoch.

Manasseh,

tories

is entirely different from that which we find in all hisBut the whole chronology of this epoch to this time (697). needs now to be re-cast, taking as a starting point the date of the expedition of Sennacherib, definitely fixed by the monuments for the

* This date

up

Evidently, when the Book of Kings gives but twentyyear 700 B.C. nine years for the reign of Hezekiah, it stops its calculation at the birth of Manasseh, and his association on his father's throne in 697. It reckons, also, the years of Manasseh's reign from the same date, although he did not reign alone, and in reality till 685, when he was twelve years old, that is fifteen years after the invasion of the Assyrians, as the Bible expressly says.

iS2

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

l>y

wearied
planks.

his reproaches, caused

him

to

bo sawn asunder

l)ct\veon

two

Conduct so wicked, of necessity drew down on tlie king of Judah the punishments which Divine Providence keeps always in reserve for gi'eat criminals. Esarhaddon, kinjj of Assyria, one of the last of the great Assyrian conquerors, set on foot an expedition to reduce to obedience'
the revolted

Phcenician

cities.

After having taken and bunit Sidon,

cities,

and

receiveti the

submission of the other

he marched on the

kingdom of Judah, defeated the army, took Jerusalem, made Manasseh prisoner, and confined him at Babylon; there the latter repented of his
conduct, and prayed to God,
after a captivity of

who

heard him.

Restored to Jerusalem

some

length, by order of Esarhaddon,

and

re-esta-

blished on the throne, on the condition of recognising the suzerainty of

the Assyrian monarch and paying Jiim tribute, he overthrew the idols,

and re-established the altar of Jehovah. But his repentance was not of long duration; after a time he recommenced the wicked ways which

had

and Jeremiah attests that the end of the Manasseh was as full of the same impiety and the same crimes as the commencement. Manasseh died in 642, at the age of fifty- five years. His corpse was refused royal sepulture. 7- His son Anion, who succeeded him at the age of twenty-two years, followed his example in favouring idolati-y. Some officers of his court conspired against Amon, and killed him in his palace; he had hardly reigned two years (640). Burial in the royal sepulchre was
led to his misfortunes,

reign of

refused to
of

him as well as to his father. The people killed the assassins Amon, and placed on the throne his son Josiah, who was but eight

years old.
8. The reign of Josiah was the last brilliant epoch of the kingdom of Judah, so soon to be swallowed up in the great revolutions of which Asia became the theatre. The young king was no doubt educated by

the priests and prophets, for

we

see that, while

still

very young, he

manifested great zeal for the re- establishment of the orthodox worship,

and that he made his ancestor David his model. He married early, and was hardly fourteen years old when his first wife Zebuda gave him
a son,
wife,

who

received the

name

of Eliakim.

Two

years after, another

Hamutal, gave him a second son, called Jehoahaz, and about thirteen years later he had by the same wife a last son, named
Mattaniah.

According to the Book of Chronicles, Josiah commenced in the his reign his religious reforms by severe measures against idolaters; and although the Book of Kings reports no act of
twelfth year of

Josiah previous to the eighteenth year of his reign, the repair of the Temple, which was ordered in that same year, presupposes the suppression of idolatry.

Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, a priest of the town

JOSIAH'S REFORMATION.
of Anathoth,

183

who commenced
mind of

preaching as a prophet in the thirteenth

year of the reign of Josiah, probably exercised by his discourses some

influence on the
city,

the king, for being ])ersecuted in his native

and even threatened witli death, he repaired to Jerusalem. The prophet Zephaniah also lived under Josiali, and very probal)ly during
the early part of
9.
liis

reign.

Tlie eighteenth year of Josiah

was

signalised

hy an important

event, which contributed to render the zeal of the king for the re-esta-

blishment of the Mosaic worship

still

more

ardent.

The high

priest

Hilkiah, in superintending the repairs of the Temple, found hidden the

writings of Moses, hidden

Law, probably an ancient and valuable copy of the away from the fury of the king during the which was believed to have been lost. The reign of Manasseh, and book was carried to the king, who, but little acquainted with the Law,
of the

Book

Hearing all its precepts, so ill observed and the menaces of the Divme chastisement awaiting transgressors, Josiah was struck with terror, and rent his clothes. He then convoked the elders of his council, and repaired with them to the courts of the Temple the priests, the Levites, the prophets, and people
caused
it

to

be read to him.

up

to that time,

came together in a crowd. Josiah read with a loud voice the Book of the Law, and made the people renew the oath of the
of
all

ranks,

covenant with Jehovah.

the

He

then ordered the total destruction of

that

all

might recall the idols were burned, and idolatry The high places on the south their ashes cast into the brook Kedron. dedicated by Solomon to the various of the Mount of Olives, originally divinities of Asiatic paganism, were desecrated by human bones vidiich were placed there. The high places and separate altars destined to the worship of the true God were treated in the same way, for the king, in conformity with the strict precepts of the Mosaic laws, woidd no longer The tolerate any altar but that of the central sanctuary of the nation. reforms of Josiah extended even to part of the ancient kingdom of
of
Israel, reunited to

monuments

pagan worship, and of all A great number of of former times.

Judah

after the retreat of Sennacherib.

Josiah went
his return to

in person to Bethel, destroyed the temple of the golden calf established

by Jeroboam,

killed the priests,

and defiled the

altar.

On

Jerusalem, he celebrated the Passover with a solemnity which had not

been seen in that ceremony even under Hezekiah. The city of David again became the centre of religious worship, both for the inhabitants of the land of Judah and for the remains of the ten tribes, who were
still left

on the ancient

territory of Israel.

Jeremiah preached
it.

in

the

public places on the subject of this

curse on those
10.

new

covenant, and j^ronounced a

to the courageous devosufficient

who

should attempt to violate

and energy of Josiah, united tion of Jeremiah, would perhaps have been
piety

The

to re-establish


l84

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

manner, and to establish the state firmly on
;

religious unity in a durable

the basis of the Mosaic law

but political movements in Asia, into which

itself,

the land of Judah was drawn in spite of

little

hastened the ruin of the

kingdom, already weakened by so many struggles. Judah had escaped from the invasion of the Scythians, who, in 625 and 624, had traversed Palestine and threatened Egypt, and who, stopped in their progress by the entreaties and presents of Pharaoh, had in their retreat pillaged the Temple of Atergatis at Ascalon. No doubt the mountains of Judaea were found inaccessible by the Scythian horsemen, who could only act on the plains. The weakening of the Assyrian empire, fallen into decay in the weak and effeminate hands of Saracus, and whose capital had been once on the eve of falling into the hands of the Medes, had given the Hebrews some respite during the thirty years of But in the Chaldsean king of Babylon Nabopolassar Jbsiah's reign. who was beginning to form an empire for himself out of the ruins of that of Nineveh, and who already threatened the country on this side the Euphrates, Egypt saw the rise of a new and formidable enemy. Necho, son and successor of Psammeticus I., wishing to arrest the progress of the Chaldjeans, and also to seize his share of the spoils of the Assyrian monarchy, marched on the Euphrates after the example of the Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, to possess himself of the fortress of Carchemish, or Circesium, and thus make himself master of the point where for ages armies had most easily and most Necho had no hostile intentions frequently crossed the Euphrates. towards the kingdom of Judah, which he did not even cross in his march. He traversed the land of the Philistines, in great part subject to him, for Psammeticus had, after a siege of twenty-nine years, possessed himself of the town of Ashdod, and he himself had taken Gaza. The Egyptian army passed to the north of the kingdom of Judah over the

ancient territory of Israel, intending to cross the plain of Esdraelon, but

was stopped

in its march by Josiah, who advanced to attack it near urged on by the foolish suggestions of the military party, who Megiddo, desired at any price an opportunity for a victory, which might again

raise the fortunes of

Judah.

Necho

told Josiah that

he did not wish to

meddle with his states; that he was marching in hot haste against his enemies, and that Josiah could not fight him unless he were determined to provoke a struggle Avhich could but prove fatal to him. In spite of
these warnings Josiah persisted in fighting the Egyptians, but his troops

were beaten and himself mortally wounded by the arrow of an Egyptian archer. His body was conveyed to Jerusalem (610). The death of the pious king spread everywhere grief and consternation ; in him the last support of religion went down to the sepulchres of Sion, and from that moment the kingdom of Judah, which might have had hopes of religious and political regeneration, advanced with rapid steps to total ruin.

185

INVASION OF THE EGYPTIANS.

Jeremiah and all the poets of the epoch composed lamentations on the death of king Josiah, which for a long time afterwards were recited on each anniversaiy of the fatal day of Megiddo.

Section VII.

Last days of the Kingdom of Judah NebuchadnezzarCapture OF Jerusalem (610 588).

or Shallum, the second son of Josiah, succeeded his

I.

Jehoahaz,

father at the age of twenty-three years, chosen by the people instead of

his elder brother, Eliakim, the latter having possibly

shown himself dis-

posed to negotiate with the king of Eg>'pt, whom they yet hoped to resist. During this time Necho had continued his march to the north, and had taken Kadesh on the Orontes, the Cadytis of Herodotus.* He had for
the

moment

given up the capture of Carchemish, wishing

first

to conquer

stopped at Riblah, a Syrian city on the territory of Hamath, and thence sent troops to occupy Jerusalem. The king Jehoalaaz was carried to Riblah, and Necho sent him prisoner to

Syria and Palestine.

He

Egypt, where he remained

months.

till

his death.

He had

reigned but three

Necho

raised to the throne in his place Eliakim, the eldest

;

son of Josiah, whose name he changed to Jehoiakim at the same time he imposed on the land of Judah a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.
2.

Jehoialcim was not more fitted than his brother to raise the hopes

; on the contrary, his tyranny and the prowhich he extended to idolatry drew down on him the execration of all well-minded men. Not content with the tax which he was compelled to lay on the people to pay the tribute to Egypt, he further oppressed his people and made them submit to forced labour for the

of the priests and prophets

tection

* Her. ii. iii. Cadytis has been identified both with 5. 159 Jenisalem (named Kadesh or Kadiisha, "the holy," the modern El Kuds), and also with Gaza. The identification with Jerusalem is accepted by the learned Lightfoot {Horce Hebraiae, London, 1584) as a "thing beyond controversy;" but Herodotus seems to have reached it travelling along the sea coast, and there are many indications which render it impossible to consider Cadytis as Jerusalem. A more generally received opinion has made Cadytis Gaza (see Jer. xlvii. i ), to which there is only one (but that seems a fatal) objection that Necho took Cadytis after defeating Josiah at Megiddo, and, as it would appear, on his way to Carchemish. All the arguments in favour of Gaza will tell also in favour of the identification in the text; ;/(/ Kadesh also was directly in Pharaoh's way from Megiddo to Carchemish, and a city of such importance that he would be unlikely to leave it in his rear untaken. Tr.
;

i86

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

edifices, in spite of the miseral)le state

purpose of erecting sumptuous

the ])eople.

of

Those wlio dared

in

to resist the ahominajjle tyranny of the

in

king were
Jerusalem.

danger of death, and much innocent blood was shed

(Jer. xxvi. 21).

Jehoial^im pursued the prophet Urijah even to Egypt, with

the intention of putting him to death

Jeremiah would

have shared the same

he had not been protected by some important personages, but the danger he was in did not daunt him he
fate if
;

ceased not to stigmatise in the most energetic terms the tyranny of Jehoiakim, the depravity of his courtiers, among whom were to be seen

even
3.

men

of priestly class, and

some who even preached

as prophets.

In the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, Necho, after having

subjected by degrees the people on this side the Euphrates, thought

himself in a position to undertake the siege of Carchemish.

But

at this

moment Nebuchadnezzar (Nabukudurussur),

Prince Royal of Babylon,

advanced against him at the head of a strong army, whilst his father, Nabopolassar, was engaged in the capture and destruction of Nineveh, in alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes. A great battle was fought before Carchemish, and Necho, being defeated, was obliged to retirehastily into Egypt, abandoning all his recent conquests. At this time Habakkuk pronounced his prophecy on the redoubtable power of the Chaldceans, which threatened to swallow up Judah, and which was to fall in its turn, after having served as the instrument of the wrath of
heaven.

In the year following the battle of Carchemish, the Chaldreans advanced as far as the frontiers of Egypt, and brought all Syria into subjection, without however touching the kingdom of Judah; for they appeared before Pelusium in two columns, one of which had marched through the land of the Philistines and the other through Perrea, the land of the Ammonites and Moabites. The Egyptians no longer dared to advance beyond their own frontier. In the month of December of that
year, 605, a public fast

of

God

against

the Chaldseans.

was proclaimed at Jerusalem to implore the help Jeremiah took advantage of this

occasion to

make

his secretary, Baruch, read publicly in the court of the

his prophecies.

Temple

Jehoiakim having heard of it sent for, and after having read the roll, burnt it; at the same time he ordered Jeremiah and Baruch to be arrested and put to death. But they succeeded in concealing themselves in a safe retreat, which they did not leave until after the death of Jehoiakim, and where Jeremiah dictated afresh the words of the book that had been burned, and added to it a
the

book of

prophecy

full

of

menace

to the king.

Jehoiakim nevertheless escaped the danger for the time; Nebuchadnezzar having received the news of the death of his father (604), took the road across the desert to return with all possible haste to Babylon, to be there proclaimed king, postponing to another time the subjection of

CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM.
Jehoiakim, and of other
till

187

allies of Egypt. He did not return to Syria two years later, but he then penetrated into the heart of the kingdom of Judah, and made it tributary, took Jerusalem, and forced Jehoiakim to recognise him as suzerain (602). At that time Nebuchadnezzar look, for :he first time, some of the sacred vessels of the Temple to Babylon, and carried off many young men of noble families such as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah as hostages for the fidelity of Jehoiakim, whom he at first intended to imprison, but finally decided on allowing to occupy the throne at Jerusalem. Three years later (599) false policy of certain orators or false Jehoiakim, seduced by the prophets, and reckoning on the assistance of Psammeticus II., king of Egypt, ventured to rebel against the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar prepared a new expedition into Judaea, and whilst his preparations were going on, ravaged the country by bands of Chaldasan, Arab, Syrian and

Ammonite

cavalry.

Jehoiakihi died whilst these preliminary incursions

were going on,

4.

at the age of thirty-six years, leaving his

son Jehoiachin

to bear all the weight of the consequences of his rebellion.

Jehoiachin, called also

Jeconiah, then, at the age of eighteen

mounted a throne surrounded by the most formidable dangers. The Chaldrean army did not long delay its appearance before Jerusalem, to which it laid siege; king Nebuchadnezzar soon followed. Jehoiachin was not in a state to sustain a long siege, and as the help he expected did not arrive from Egj-pt, he surrendered, and descended from the throne which he had occupied but three months and ten days (599). The Babylonians then entered the city, and seized upon all the treasures of the Temple and of the royal palace, and carried off all the utensils ot gold which had been in the sanctuary ever since the time of Solomon. Ten thousand of the principal inhabitants, nobles and artisans, particularly smiths and armourers, were removed to Babylon. This was
years,

the

those carried off

later

commencement of the seventy was Ezekiel, then

began
to

years captivity of Judah.

twenty-five years old,

Amongst
five

who

years

preach and prophesy

and

in Chaldeea.

among his brother exiles at Babylon, The king Jehoiachin, who had surrendered at disin close prison at

cretion,

was shut up

Babylon, where he remained more

than thirty-six years, until Evil Merodach, son and successor of Nebu-

him to pass his last years at Mattanaiah, youngest son of Josiah, and uncle of the unfortunate Jehoiachin, was then made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, \\ho
chadnezzar, released him, and permitted
liberty.

changed his name to Zedekiah, thus proving Necho had done by Eliakim.

his

own

suzerainty, as

5. Zedekiah, last of the successors of David, was in reality nothing more than a Babylonian satrap. A young man \\ithout exjxjrience, devoid of judgment and of energy, he became the sport of the intriguers of the court, who by their evil counsels hastened his fall and the final

iSS

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

By
keepinjj the faith he
to a certain extent,

had sworn to the Babylonian have enjoyed a time of tranquiUity, during wliich the forces of his little kingdom might have recruited themselves. Jeremiah and some clear-sighted men showed that this was the only course to take in order to avoid the greatest misfortunes but the aristocratic party was far from approving that prudent policy, and used all its influence with Zedekiah to induce him to throw off the Chaldaean yoke, by contracting alliances with the neighbouring nations and with Egypt. This advice was supported by the rash counsels which the exiles in Babylon gave in all their letters to Jerusalem, the effect of which on the minds of the priests and people Jeremiah took all possible pains to counteract. In the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah (595), ambassadors from the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, came to Jerusalem,
ruin of J"<l^li.

monarch, Zeilokiah might,

to attempt to organise a general revolt against the

common

oppressor.

and preaching by act as well as by word, sent to each of the ambassadors a yoke of wood, emblematical of the Babylonian servitude, to signify to them that all the neighbouring peoples ought patiently to bear that yoke until the destined hour, not long to be delayed, should arrive to break the Babylonian power. He showed himself in the courts of the Temple, bearing the yoke on his shoulders. These speeches of Jeremiah diverted Zedekiah for a time from those imprudent projects and the king himself repaired in person to Babylon, to do homage to his suzerain, and to dispel any suspicion which might have arisen as to his fidelity. 6. But Zedekiah did not long retain the peaceful dispositions with which the prophet had succeeded in inspiring him. Led away by the false policy of his councillors, which all the prophets since Isaiah had combated, he entered into negotiations with Egypt, where Uahprahet the Hophra of the Bible, the Apries of the Greeks then reigned. Having received the promise of help from him, Zedekiah thought himself strong enough to throw off the Babylonian yoke, which he had borne for eight years, and therefore refused his tribute. The Chaldseans again invaded the kingdom of Judah in 590 B.C., and occupied the whole country, with the exception of the strong cities of Lachish and Jerusalem, which, reckoning on the speedy arrival of the Egyptian
Jeremiah, fearful of the

consequences of these conspiracies,

The siege of Jerusalem commenced in days of January, 589. Jeremiah, questioned by order of the Foreking by Zephaniah the priest, delivered a threatening prophecy. seeing that the city would be forced to surrender sooner or later, he
troops, prepared for resistance.

the

first

again insisted that the king should repair his fault towards Nebuchadnezzar by a voluntary submission, giving

him

to

hope that

in that case
;

he might die

in peace,

and

rest in the

sepulchre of his fathers

but he

was not heeded.

To

increase the

number

of combatants, and to regain

SECOND SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.

the affections of the people,

189

who were

discontented at seeing the king

subject to the exchisive influence of the aristocracy, Zedekiali betliought

himself of the provisions of the Mosaic law, so

detained in slavery for more than six years
to be at once put in force,

little

observed during

the period of the monarchy, which did not permit a

;

Hebrew

to

be

he ordered these regulations

and released all Israelitish slaves. 7. At this time the Egyptian troops entered Judaea to attack the Chaldi^ans, who raised the siege of Jerusalem in order to meet them. Then the king and his nobles, believing themselves freed from all danger, revoked their decision relative to the slaves, and wished to The reduce again to slavery those who had already been released. " Thus saith indignation of Jeremiah at this sight knew no bounds. the Lord," said he, " Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming
liberty,

every one to his brother, and every one to his neighl)our:

I will

behold,

proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword,

;

and to the famine and I will make you to be removed * * * into all the kingdoms of the earth. And Zedekiah, king ot Judah, and his princes, will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from Behold, I will commaml, saith the Lord, and will cause them to you. return to this city; and they sliall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an
to the pestilence,

inhabitant." (Jer. xxxiv. 17, s,y.)

Veiy soon, in conformity with the predictions of Jeremiah, the Egyptians retreated almost without fighting, and the Chaldasans re-

commenced
than before.

the siege of Jerusalem, and pressed

it

with greater vigour

and said openly who did not give themselves up to the Babylonians, which irritated the officers of Zedekiah to the highest degree, as it induced many to desert, and so thinned the ranks of the They obtained an order from the king to throw the prophet defenders. into prison, where the military party wished to have hun put to death. Zedekiah went to visit him there, and Jeremiah repeated to him his counsels of submission, which the king well knew to be wise counsels, but dared not adopt, for fear of the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar. 8. Whilst provisions remained in the city, the inhabitants heroically resisted the Chaldaian army. The tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah
Jeremiah
reiterated his prophecies of evil,

that none should save their lives

passed away before the besiegers could

make

a breach.

Many

houses

were demolished to

fortify the

walls against the

war machines of the

enemy, the approaches of which became more formidaljle every day. But at last the defenders of Jerusalem, whose courage had not yet for an instant failed, succumbed to hunger and fatigue. In July, 588 B.C., provisions were entirely exhausted in the city, and resistance was no
longer possible.

One

night, profiting

by the

fatigue of the defenders,

igo

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Zedekiah
fled

the Chal(la\ins, without mucli difficulty, penetrated into the city on the

north side.

away with

the remains of his troops by a

postern g^ate giving access to the royal gardens.

The

fugitives

made

towards the Jordan, but the Babylonians pursued and overtook tliem in the Plains of Jericho. Zedekiah's little troop disbanded, and the unfortunate king was made prisoner, and conducted to Nebuchadnezzar's head-quarters at Riblah, on the territory of Hamath. Fearful treatment awaited him his young sons, as well as the nobles of Judah who
;

had encouraged him

were killed before his eyes, and he was loaded with chains and carried to Babylon, where he remained in a dungeon till his death. The fate of Jerusalem and of its inhabitants was next decided and on enquiry it was found that every personage of importance had entered
to
revolt,

himself, with his eyes put out,

into the plot against the authority of the Babylonian monarch.

month
guards,
palace,
set

after the

conquest, Nebuzaradan, captain of Nebuchadnezzar's

entered Jerusalem.

By

his

orders the Temple, the

king's

and
fire.

all

the principal buildings of the capital of Judah were

on

In a few days the magnificent city was changed into a heap

The high priest Seraiah, and Zephaniah, the "second priest," were arrested with many of the great nobles and sixty of the principal
of ruins.
inhabitants,

and conducted

to Riblah,

where they were put

to death.

The

majority of the citizens and of the soldiers had taken refuge in the

country and in the neighbouring lands. The chief of those who remained were led captive to Babylon, but their number amounted to

only 832 persons.

9.

This frightful catastrophe, however, was not the

fall

last act

of the

sad tragedy of the

of the

kingdom of Judah.

Nebuchadnezzar had
left

confined himself to punishing Jerusalem, and had

the greater part

of the inhabitants of the country unmolested.

chief or satrap

He

had

installed,

as

(under the surveillance of his general, Nebuzaradan,

charged with maintaining for a time the military occupation of the

country), not a Chaldsean or a Syrian, but a Hebrew, named Gedaliah, a pious man, a good patriot, beloved and esteemed by the people. He

had

fixed his residence at Mizpeh,

where Jeremiah, who had been taken

prisoner and afterwards released, joined him, and composed his sublime

Lamentations on the destruction of Jerusalem. The installation of Gedaliah as governor, by re-assuring people as to Nebuchadnezzar's intentions, had caused the fugitives to re-assemble, and amongst them the chief captains who had directed the defence of the holy city. Order

was

re-established, agricultural labours again

visional worship organised in the ruins of the

commenced, and a proTemple. But a traitor soon

destroyed the hopes of the

last

remnant of Judah.

At

the instigation

of Baalis, king of the Ammonites, whose traditional hatred could not

bear to see a compact nucleus of

Hebrew

nationality

still

subsisting,

MURDER OF GEDALIAH.
personage

191

named Ishmacl,

and

as, after

this useless crime,

of the race of David, assassinated Gedaliah; he could hope neither to succeed to his

victim, nor to maintain himself against the Chaldaeans,

he

fled to the

land of the Ammonites.

general panic followed the murder of Gedaliah.

All the principal

people who still remained in the land, fearing the vengeance of the Babylonians, emigrated to Eg)'pt, taking with them by force Jeremiali, who did not wish to leave the land of Judah. The emigrants established themselves at Tahpanhes, in the eastern part of the Delta; and some years after, adding a new crime to those which had been the ruin
of the Hebrews, they there stoned to death the prophet Jeremiah, who attempted to stem the progress of Egyptian idolatry among them. Nebuzaradan, as a punishment for the murder of Gedaliah, transported
to

Babylon 745 more of the chief inhabitants, and

colonies
in the land of

installed

numerous
till

foreign

Judah.

From

this

moment

the

return of Zerubbabel, under Cyrus, Judsea ceased to have the least

vestige of national
life,

and obeyed Chaldcean governors sent from

Babylon.

END OF BOOK

II.

192

BOOK
CHAPTER

III.

THE EGYPTIANS.
I.

EGYPT THE NILE AND

Chief Authorities for
Classical
IFriters
I.

ITS

INUNDATIONS THE

KINGS OF THE OLD EMPIRE.

Chapters on the History of Egypt. fragments of the Dynasties of Manetho, oi Fragmenta Historicorum Gracorum. Didot.
the

The

Four

inserted in Vol.

Herodotus, Book H. Diodorus Siculus, Book I. The Canon of Eratosthenes, preserved by George SynceUus, the Byzantine ChronoBook I. loger. ^Josephus, Against Apion.

Collections

Young, Hieroglyphics, Lonof original Egyptian Texts Burton, Excerpta Hieroglyphica, Cairo, 1828. Cliampollion, Monuments de V Egypte et de la Ntibie, Paris, 1S33 45. Sharpe, Egyptian Inscriptions from the British Alttseitm, London, Leemans, Monuments Egyptiens du Miisee d''Anti(]iiitt's 1837. Leyden, 1839 67. Lepsius, Aiiswahl des Pays Bas d Leyde, der wichstigsten Urkiinden des Ai,gyptischen Alterthictns, Leipzig,
don, 1823.

Urhis, Rome, 1842. Prisse d'Avennes, 1844. Monuments Egyptiens, Paris, 1847. Select Papyri of the British Museum, London, 1844. Lepsius, Denkmaler aiis Aigyptcn itnd Brugsch, Rec7ieil de Mo>iuments Aithiopien, Berhn, 1850 1858. Egypiiens,L,eipzig, 1862. Materiajix pourservir a la reconstruction du Geop-aphische Leipzig, 1864. Diimichen, Calendrier Egyptien, KalenderInscJniften Altcvgyptischcr Denkniiiler, Leipzig, 1S64. Historische Inschriften, Leipzig, 1867. inschriften, Leipzig, 1866. Tempilinschriften, Leipzig, 1867. De Rouge, Album photographique Mariette, Le Serapeum de de la Mission dEgypte, Paris, 1865. Memphis (In course of publication).

1842.

Ungarelli,

Interpretatio

Obeliscorum

Champolhon, Notices

descriptives, Paris,

Modern Works on Egyptology

raons, Paris,
1814.

ChampoUion, VEgypte sous

E

les

Pha-

Lettres <i M. le due de Blacas, Paris, 1824. Aperpi des rcsultats historiques de la decojiverte de Palphabet hieroLettres ecrites dEgypte, Paris, 1833 {1 edit. glvphique, Paris, 1827. Champolhon Figeac, Egypte ancienne, Paris, 184O. 1868). Ch. Lenormant, Eclaircissements sur le Cerc7ieil du roi Mycerinus,

Antiquites Egyptiennes, Paris, 1841. sopra la cronologia Egizia, Turin, 1844. Bunsen, Aigyptens Sfelle in der Weltsgeschiclite, Gottingen, 1845 The English translation of this work enriched with the large 1857. additions due to the learned researches of Dr. Birch, London, 1867, 1868. Brunei de Presle, Examen critique de la succession des dynasties
Paris,

1837.

Musee

des

Barucchi, Discorsi

critici

193

GEOGRAPHY OF EGYPT.

Lepsius, Chronologie der ALgyptei; Berlin, E^ypticnnes, Paris, 1850. Uehcr die Bricfc aus ^'Egypleii iind ^'Hthicipien, Berlin, 1852. 1849. 12'" ^gvptische Ko)ugsdyiiasiie, Berlin, 1853. tiiigsbiich der Alien Aigypler, Berlin, 1858. The numerous and admirable Articles by Dr. 13irch in the Archaologia, and Transactions of tlie Royal Society of Literature. De Rouge, Exatnen critique de Vouvrage de M. Bunsen,

Memoire sur V inscription du iombeau d'Ahmes, Paris, Memoire sur la Statuette iVaopkore du Vatican, Paris, 1851. Le Po'eme de Pentaour, Paris, 1856. Etudes sur une stele de la BiblioParis, 1847.
1

85

1.

Notice de quelqiies textes publits par theque impiriale, Paris, 1858. M. Greene., Paris, 1856. Etude sur divers Alonunients du rcgne de Toutmis III., Paris, 186 1. Mhnoires sur les Moninnents des six Notice des Moftuments Egyptiens du premieres dynasties, Paris, 1866. Musee du Louvre. Biot, Recherches de quelques dates absolues sur les Sur un calendrier astronomiquc, Moninnents Egyptiens, Paris, 1853 Brusch, Geografhiscke Inschriftcn Altcegyptischer DenkParis, 1852. 1860. Histoire dEgypte, Leipzig, 1859. mdler, Leipzig, 1S57 DLimichen, Bau-Urkunde der Tempelanlagen von Detidera, Leipzig, Marriette, Renseignmcnts sur les soixante quatre Apis trouvcs 1865. auSerapeum, Paris, 1855. Notice du Musee de Boiilac, Cairo, 1862. Abrege de l'histoi>e dEgypte, Paris, 1867. Description du pare C\iaha.s, Inscription egvptien a P Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867. Melanges Egyptologiques, historique du rcgne de Seti \", Paris, 1856. Les Papyrus hieratiques de BerltJi, ChaChalons-sur-Saone, 1863. Les Inscriptions des Mines d'' Or, Chalons-surlons-sur-Saone, 1863. Voyage d'un Egvptien en Syrie, Phenicie, Palestine, Saone, 1862. Th. Deveria, Le Papyrus yudiciaire de Chalons-sur-Saone, 1867. F. Lenorniant, UAntiquite a P Exposition Turin, Paris, 1866. large number of Articles on Universelle. LEgypte, Paris, 1867. Egyptian Antiquities published in the Revue ArcMologique by M. de The Journal de Rouge, Dr. Birch, M. Mariette, and M. Deveria. linguistique et d'Archeologie Egyptiennes, edited at Berlin by Dr. Brugsch and M. Lepsius.

Section I. Physical Geography of Egypt Its Inundations.

I.

The

Nile

Egypt
it,

is

a long narrow tract of country, stretching from south to

north, occupying the north-east angle of Africa, or, as the ancients

Lybia, where it is joined to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez. bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the east by the Isthmus and by the Red Sea, on the south by Nubia, which country the Nile traverses before it enters Egypt at the Cataracts of Syene, and lastly, on the west, by deserts containing a few scattered oases, or habitThe desert extends almost to the able spots, fertilised by fountains. sea on the north-east of Egypt, as well as along the shores of the
called

Egypt

is

Red

Sea.

But, moreover,

much

of the interior of Egypt itself

is is

desert.

Every
no

part not watered by the annual inundations of the Nile

uninhabitable,
:

and produces neither

corn, nor vegetables, nor trees, nor even grass

194
water
is

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

found there
;

the very utmost beint; here and there a well,

more

or less likely to be found dry, under a constantly burning atmosphere.

In Upper, or Southern, Egypt rain

the wliole soil
is

is a phenomenon extremely rare, and sand or rock, except in the valley of the Nile, a valley

which, as

far as the place

fourths of the whole length of

where the river bifurcates that is, for threeEgypt has not a larger mean width than

and in some places far less. Herodotus was then quite right in saying, " All Egypt is the gift of tlie Nile" (Her. ii. 5). If the course of the Nile were diverted, nothing would break the arid uniformity of the desert. If the Upper Nile were intercepted, Egypt would be annihilated. This idea did occur to an emperor of Abyssinia who lived in the thirteenth centuiy, and in later times also to the Portuguese Albuquerque. In fact, the Nile throughout the whole of its lower course has the remarkable peculiarity of receiving no affluent, and, unlike all other rivers, of diminishing instead of increasing as it advances, for the water is employed in feeding canals, and there is nothing to restore what it thus loses. 2. Nearly the whole of the Nile valley is confined between two mountain chains, called on the east, Arabian, on the west, Lybian. These mountains, especially towards the south, approach each other so as almost to form actual defiles. The province called Fayoum, however, to the west of the Nile in Central Egypt, a short distance from
four or five leagues,

Here Memphis, is fertilised by canals and by a lake. which north of the cataracts is a mere valley, widens very considerably. A little below the city of Cairo, the present capital of Egypt, situated not far from the niins of Memphis, the Nile divides one, that of Rosetta, runs north-west, and the other, into two branches north and north-east. These were in fonner times that of Damietta, " Bolbitine " and " Phatnitic," or " Bucolic," mouths. But called the the ancients mention also five others that have since been filled up, or at They were ist, the any rate have become useless for navigation. Canopic, west of the Bolbitine, of which it was a branch Herodotus thought that it was the ancient bed of a canal, and that the Bolbitine mouth was artificial 2nd, the Sebennytic, running west of the 4th, the Tanitic, which detached Phatnitic; 3rd, the Mendesian itself eastward from the same branch; and finally, the Pelusiac, the most eastern of all, and which during part of its course is the same as These five channels were named from cities situated near the Tanitic.
the site of

Egypt,

their mouths.

great

number of small

canals intersected the interior

of Lower Egypt, but the ground there being anything but solid, and
disturbed by the inundations, the natural or
artificial
still

much

watercourses have

much changed
3.

in the lapse of ages,

and are

frequently changing.

Near

the sea, the Nile forms

many

great lagoons, enclosed

by

tongues of earth or sand, and communicating with the Mediterranean


INUNDATION OF THE
NILE.
195

by breaches in the banks. The chief are Lake Menzaleh to the east, which does not seem very ancient, at the mouth of the Tanitic and Mendesian branches Lake Boorlos, containing tlie ancient Lake Bonto,
;

in tlie centre of the coast,

and opening to the sea by the remains of the and finally to the west, near the famous city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, in a place already inhabited and called Racotis, the Lake Mareotis of the ancients. The space contained between the most distant branches of the river is called the Delta, on account of its almost triangular shape resembling that of the Greek letter Delta.
Sebennytic branch
;

Each year in the summer solstice, that is, towards the end of June, commences to rise; its waters soon arrive at the height of, and overflow, its banks, and then spread suddenly over the whole valley which
4.

the Nile

is

in

tion has also

soil

most parts lower than the river banks. An artificial system of irrigabeen contrived to extend the benefits of the inundation to the beyond its natural limits. By the end of September the waters
falling,

which they remain only a few days, and and by the month of December have returned to their original level. Sowing commences, and continues as the waters fall, that is from the the beginning of October in Upper Egypt, and fifteen days later in the Delta; the fall as well as the rise of the water is later the lower we go down the course of the river. Harvest time is in
attain their greatest height, at

then commence

March
their

prepared.

operations are easy in a land so fertile and well During the overflow of the river, the inhabitants, shut up in towns and villages built on natural or artificial elevations, and con;

all agricultural

verted into islands in the midst of a vast lake, await with anxiety the

moment when

they can estimate the height of the year's inundation, for

on that depends the abundance of the harvest. This wonderful river, that leaves its bed at fixed periods
the ground,

to fertilise

much

excited the astonishment of the ancients,

who

did

not

know

that all rivers rising in or flowing through the torrid zone

present similar phenomena.

They had

recourse to a thousand absurd

rise,

speculations to account for this periodical

which may be found

in

Herodotus and Diodorus

suspected,
is

-Siculus.

The
as

true cause of the inundation, as

some ancient geographers, such

where the Nile takes
its rise.

Eratosthenes and Agatharcides,

the periodical rainy season inundating

Upper Abyssinia,

Section
I.

II.

Principal Sources of the History ok Egypt.

For

a very long time, to write the history of Egypt was but to

Greek authors, as no one had penetrated the deep mystery of the writing of the ancient Egyjitians. And the accounts these Greeks have given of the land of the Pharaohs, and of its annals,
rei)eat the talcs of

196
in

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

no way agree with each other. In the midst of their contradictions, we ought in preference to give credit to the facts stated by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. The position of the historian has now, however, been completely changed by the invaluable discovery of Champollion, who has enabled us to read with certainty We hieroglyphics that had for centuries been an insoluble problem. monuturn now to the writings of the Egyptians themselves to their mental inscriptions, to their papyri-^and ask them to reveal to us the
it

has seemed that

annals of this ancient land.

Since history has possessed the original

tv/o classical

documents of the banks of the Nile, the authority of these

writers,

once almost exclusively followed as guides, has been entirely

destroyed.

Herodotus was a

traveller of great

truthfulness,
all

who
that

re-

counts with charming simplicity and also rare intelligence

himself saw.

With

respect to the description of the manners

his

customs of the Egyptians which he saw with

confirm his testimony.

own

eyes, his

he and book is

exceedingly valuable, and every day monuments are brought to light to

But in all that is historical, knowing nothing of the language of Egypt, he could not refer directly to authorities, and was obliged to content himself with the stories of his guides, and of the priests of the temples that he visited. So he does not really attempt, and this he is himself the first to admit, even a complete and full essay on the history of the Pharaonic dynasties, but simply a series of " guide-book " stories relating to a few of those kings. These anecdotes, too, do not follow each other in real chronological order; it is easy to
see that the ingenious Halicarnessian traveller has disaiTanged his sheets

of notes taken at

epochs

in

Memphis on the subject, and has, as a result, inverted way otherwise inexplicable. As for the work of Diodorus

manners and customs which saw for himself, it is, as history, merely a compilation of facts gathered he on all sides, and arranged without regard to order. His stories on the annals of Egypt have really no value and it is with difficulty that we
Siculus, most valuable on the subject of
;

find

among

his anecdotes a

few only of really Egyptian origin, such as

we

find in greater number in Herodotus, Of all the Greek writers who have treated of the history of the Pharaohs, there is only one whose

testimony has, since the deciphering of the hieroglyphics, preserved

any great value a value which increases the more it is compared with monuments we speak of Manetho. Once he was treated with contempt his veracity was disputed ; the long series of dynasties he unfolds to our view was regarded as fabulous. Now, all that remains
the original
; ;

of his

work

is

the

first

of

all

authorities for the reconstruction of the

ancient history of Egypt.

2. Manetho, a priest of the town of Sebennytus, in the Delta, wrote n Greek, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, a history of Eg)'pt,

founded on the

official

archives preserved in the temples.

Like

many

DYNASTIES OF MANETHO.
other books of antiquity, this history has been lost;

197

we

possess

now

few fragments only, with the list of all the kings placed by Manctho at a list happily preserved in the writings of some the end of his work

chronologers of the Christian epoch.

or royal families,
to
all

This

list

divides into dynasties,

the kings

who

reigned successively in Egypt

down

For the greater number of dynasties Manetho records the names of tlje kings, the length of each reign, and the duration of the dynasty for the others, and the fewer number, he
the time of

Alexander.

contents himself with a brief notice of the origin of the royal family,

the

number of its

kings, and the years during

lists,

which the family reigned.

in

We

cannot here give the complete

which, moreover, the

names of the kings have frequently been

entirely ignorant of the

by Greek copyists, Egyptian language, that they can be restored only by the direct study of Egyptian monuments. But we give an abstract
so altered

of

its

chief features in the following table

19S

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

3. "Everyone must be struck witli the ciionnous lulal of years to which the duration of the dynasties of Manetho amounts. The lists of the Ei^yptian priest, in fact, carry us back to times wliicli are mythical amony; all other peojile, but which are in Egypt certainly already

historical.

"Embarrassed by this fact, and, moreover, unable in any way to cast a doubt on the authenticity and veracity of Manetho, some modern authors have supposed that Egypt had been at some periods of its
history divided into

more than one kingdom, and

that

Manetho had

represented, as successive, dynasties which were really contempora}ieous.

According to them, the fifth dynasty, for example, was reigning at Elephantine at the same time that the sixth was enthroned at Memphis.

The convenience
and
even
in

of this system, for certain combinations fixed at leisure view of preconceived ideas, need not be pointed out. By recon-

ciling

correcting others, we may, by an ingenious and arrangement of dynasties, contract almost as we wish the length of the lists of Manetho. It is thus that, where we in the
scientific

some dates and

pi-eceding table place the foundation of the Egyptian

monarchy in the year 5004 before our era, other authors, such as Baron Bunsen, place the same event only as far back as the year 3623.

"On which side lies the truth? The larger the amount of study given to the subject, the greater is the difficulty of answering. The
gi'eatest

of

all
is

the obstacles in the

way

of establishing a regular Egyptian

chronology
chronology

the fact that the Egyptians themselves never had any

was unknown, and it has not had any other reckoning than the years of the reigning monarch. Now these years themselves had no fixed starting point, for sometimes they began from the commencement of the year in which the preceding king died, and sometimes from the day of the coroat all.

The

use of a fixed era

yet been proved that they

nation of the king.

be,

However

precise these calculations

fail in
its

may appear

to

modem

science must always

attempts to restore what the

Egyptians never possessed.

departure from truth,
is

In the midst of these doubts, the course

scientific, the least likely to

which seems the most prudent and

be a Manetho. It would certainly be contrary to established facts to pretend that from the days of Menes to the Greek conquest Egypt always formed one united kingdom; and it is possible that unexpected discoveries may one day prove that throughout nearly the whole duration of this vast empire there were even more collateral dynasties than the partisans of that system now contend for. But everything shows us that the Avork of elimination has been already performed on the lists of Manetho, in the If in fact these lists contained the state in which they have reached us.
to accept as they stand the lists of

collateral dynasties

we should

find in them, either before or after the

twenty-first, the dynasty of high priests

who

reigned at Thebes whilst


HISTORICAL MONUMENTS.
the twenty-first occupied Tanis: in the

199
to

same way we should have

count, eitlier before or after the twenty-third, the seven or eight inde-

pendent kings
to the
for
lists

not rejected them, would have added as

of the Egyptian priest
;

who were contemporary with it, and who, if Manetho had many successive royal families

one

finally

the dodecarchy would have counted between the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth dynasties, and the Theban kings, rivals of the shepherds, would have taken rank
at least

before or after the seventeenth.

" There were, therefore, incontestably contemporaneous dynasties in Egypt; but Manetho has thrown them out and admitted those only whom he regarded as legitimate, and his lists contain no others. If it were not so, it would not be thirty-one dynasties that we should have to
reckon, in the
list

of royal families previous to Alexander, but probably

nearer sixty.

" The

scholars

who have attempted

to

to

compress the dates given by

Manetho have never yet been able prove that two dynasties named in
porary.

produce one single monument to

his lists as successive

were contemproofs,
all

On

the contrary, there are superabundant

monumental

collected by very

many

Egyptologers, to convince us that

priest

the royal

races

enumerated by the Sebennytic

occupied the throne in

succession. "
4.

Mariette.
is

no country the history of which can be written on original documents as that of Egypt. Egyptian monuments are found not only in Egypt itself, but in Nubia, in Soudan, and even in Syria. To this series, already very numerous, we may add the large number of antiquities that for the last fifty years have been placed in the Museums of all large capitals, and among which the Museum of Cairo holds one of the first places, thanks to the energetic The historical monuments of Egypt may researches of M. Mariette. be divided into two classes, those belonging to history generally, and those peculiar to one particular dynasty, the histoiy of which they tell,

There

in fact

the testimony of so

many

and serve

as proofs of

its

existence.

We shall now say a few words on the most important monuments that throw light on the general history of ancient Egypt. " The first is a papyrus preserved in the Turin Museum, purchased 5.
from M. Drovetti, consul-general of France. If this papyrus were entire, the science of Egyptian antiquities could not possess a more valuable
document. It contains a list of all the mythical or historical personages who were believed to have reigned in Egypt, from fabulous times down to a period we cannot ascertain, because the end of the papyrus is Compiled under Ramses II. (nineteenth dynasty), that is, in wanting. the most flourishing epoch of the history of Egypt, this list has all the characteristics of an official document, and gives us the more valuable
assistance, as the

name

of each king

is

followed by the duration of his

20O
reis^,

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and each dynasty by Uic total number of years during which it Unfortunately this inestimable treasure exists only in governed Egypt. very small pieces (164 in number), which it is often im])ossible to join
correctly.
6. " A most valuable monument has been brought from the Temple of Karnak and deposited in the Imperial Libraiy at Paris. This is a small chamber on the walls of which Thothnics III. (eighteenth dynasty) is represented making offerings before the images of sixty-one of his preHere we have no decessors; it is called the 'Hall of the Ancestors.'* with a regular and uninteiTuptcd series; Thothmes III. longer to deal has made a choice among his predecessors, and to those of his choice At first sight, then, the Hall of the alone he makes his offerings.
'

Ancestors

'

cannot be treated as an extract from the royal

lists

of Egypt.

The compiler, actuated by motives of which we are ignorant, has taken here and there the names of some kings, sometimes accepting an It must be obentire dynasty, sometimes passing over long periods. served also that the artist charged with the execution of the Hall conceived the plan from a decorative point of view, without concerning himself to give everywhere a strictly chronological order to the figures he introduced. Lastly, unfortunate mutilations (twelve royal names are
missing) have taken from the record preserved at Paris a part of its Hall of Ancestors has not It follows, then, that the importance.
' '

afforded to science

all

the help that might have been expected from

precisely than any other
list

it.

It has, however, assisted to define more names borne by the kings of the thirteenth dynasty. " There is another choice of the same kind, made also under the 7. nspiration of motives beyond our knowledge, offered us by the Tablet

the

'

of Abydos,' found in the ruins of that celebrated city, and preserved in In this case it is Ramses II. who pays homage the British Museum.
to his ancestors.

There were

originally fifty names, but only thirty,

more or

less

complete,
'

now

remain.
'

This deplorably mutilated state

all its

deprived the

Tablet of Abydos

of nearly

real historical value,

till M. Mnriette discovered quite recently, in another temple of the same city, another copy much more perfect, and which supplies nearly all the

vacancies in the
cessor of
list

first,

dated in the reign of Seti

I.,

father
'

and predefurnishes a

Ramses
list,

II.

This

'

Second Tablet of Abydos

six

of the kings

of the

first

dynasties

almost as complete as

which it entirely corroborates. It also shows that the royal names found on the mutilated monument preserved in London, must henceforth serve to bridge hitherto defying classification, over part of the monumental gulf between the sixth and eleventh
Manetho's
dynasties.

* Frequently called also the

"Tablet of Tuthmosis."


HISTORICAL MONUMENTS.
8.

201

primitive dynasties,

' Second Tablet of Abydos,' as regards the confinned by the 'Tablet of Sakkarah,' (discovered also by M. Mariette, and now deposited in the Museum of This monument is not, like the others, of royal origin. It was Cairo. )

" The testimony of the

is

found in the tomb of a simple priest who lived under Ramses II., and was called Tunar-i according to the faith of the Egyptians, one of the good things reserved for the dead who had merited eternal life was
;

be admitted to the society of kings. Tunar-i is represented as entering the august assembly fifty-eight kings are there present, those no douijl whose memories were most honoured at Memphis. The There are, neverselection is similar to that of the Tablet of Abydos. Once or twice a king omitted in theless, some interesting differences.
to
;

one list is registered in the other, even sometimes of two princes, whose reigns were incontestably simultaneous, one figures at Sakkarah and the other at Abydos. Thus, in the time of the nineteenth dynasty, among
the competitors
positively

who

are represented in the Eg)'ptian annals,

we cannot

pronounce as to which were at the time considered legitimate sovereigns, and the list varies according to the locality, and no doubt to the limits within which they exercised authority." Mariette. dynasty or one 9. As for documents relating only to the history of one numerous that it is easy to see how imreign, they are so immensely Moreover, we possible it is for us to attempt even their enumeration. shall naturally be led to mention the most important in the course of our They are of two sorts, manuscripts on papyrus, poems on narrative. the exploits of the kings, literary compositions, correspondence or
registers
inscriptions.
pul)lic

of accounts of the public administration, and monumental These last must be again divided into two principal heads,

and private monuments.

The

official inscriptions

engraved on de-

tached steles or on the Temple walls, often accompanied by great coloured bas-reliefs, relate especially striking events and military exploits ; there
really long poems, relating quite in Biblical style the events of campaigns even to their smallest detads. The private inscripseveral tions open to us the internal life of Egyptian society, and initiate us into they furnish also the most solid all the machinery of its organisation

are

some

and valuable basis

for chronology, as

it is

not

uncommon to

find epitaphs
in

relating that a person

was bom on a certain day of one month particular year of some other person's life, and that he lived years, months and days.

some

so

many

Section

III.

Foundation of the Monarciiy

Dynasties.
in the First

First

I.

As we have already said

ing of the ethnographical table of the

Book of our Manual, in speakBook of Genesis, the Egyptians

202

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlie

were a branch of

race of

Ham.

They came from Asia through

This
is

Lhe

desert of Syria to settle in the valley of the Nile.

a fact clearly

established by science, and entirely confirms the statements of the

Book

of Genesis.

As

for the

opinion once generally admitted,

that the

Egyptians belonged to an African race whose first centre of civilisation at Meroe, and who had gradually descended the banks of the Nile We know, in fact, from the to the Sea, it cannot now be sustained.

was

monuments,

that the

the neighbourhood of Memphis, in

the foundation of Thebes; and
culture, ascending the Nile

most ancient centre of Egyptian civilisation was in Lower and Central Egypt, before even

we can

follow the gradual

in

march of

towards Ethiopia,

way

exactly the

reverse of

what has hitherto been supposed.

is

All remembrance of the early days of the residence of the sons of

Mizraim, in the land where they settled,

traditions.

lost in the mist of

mythical

This epoch Manetho fills with the fabulous dynasties of *' Gods, Heroes and Manes," and the hieroglyphic inscriptions frequently that is, "Servants of Ilorus," the call it the times of Hor Shesu

national deity and special guardian of the Egyptian people.

Did they

arrive in this land with a civilisation already developed during their stay
in Asia,

and closely resembling that of the early Cushites of Babylonia,

of the empire of

was

that civilisation developed

Nimrod? Or, having emigrated in a state of barbarism, by their own exertions, uninfluenced by

These are questions science will probably never be able to answer, and which will always remain an open field for speculation. What alone seems evident is, that the population of Eg}'pt was at first composed of distinct tribes, who, although of the same origin, had
other nations?

each a separate existence.

The

tenth chapter of Genesis mentions four

of them, each represented by a son of Mizraim.

These are

first

the

" Ludim," the true and dominant Egyptian race, called in their language Rut or Lut that is, "men"/ffr excellence. Next the Pathrusim, or
people of the southern country
P-to-res.

that

is,

of the Thebaid, in Egyptian

The Naphtuhim,

or people of

Memphis, the sacerdotal

name of which was Na Phtah, the " Part of Phtah," and lastly the Annamim, the Anu of the Egyptian monuments, who seem originally to have been dispersed throughout the whple Nile valley, and who have left traces of their name in the cities of Heliopolis (in Egyptian An),
Tentyris or Denderah (also sometimes called An), and Hermonthis
(An-res, southern An); a branch of this race maintained for a long time

But Egyptian a separate existence in a part of the Sinaitic peninsula. history only really begins from the time when these different peoples were welded into one under a single sceptre, when a purely political
hereditary power, strongly
theocratic authority,

marked by military character, replaced the by which till then the various tribes had been

governed.

FIRST DYNASTY.
2.

MENES.

203

The author
(in

This

Egyptian Teni), called

of this revolution belonged originally to the city of in later times Abydos, in Central Egypt.

Herodotus says (Her. ii. 99), " The Priests said that Menes was the first king of Egypt, and that it was he who raised the dyke which proBefore his time tlic tects Memphis from the inundations of the Nile. the sandy range of hills which skirts Egypt river flowed entirely along on the side of Lybia. He, however, by banking up the river at the bend which it forms about a hundred furlongs south of Memphis, laid the ancient channel dry, while he dug a new course for the stream halfway between the two lines of hills. * * Having thus, by turning the river, made the tract where it used to nm dry land, he proceeded in the * * he also built first place to build the city now called Memphis,
the temple of Vulcan (Phtah)
edifice,

which stands within the

city,

a vast

All classical authors who have very worthy of mention." written about Egypt mention the name of Menes, and the monuments confirm their testimony by also mentioning him as the founder of the
empire.

The dyke he

constructed

still

exists

under the name of

Dyke

of Kosheish, and regulates the course of the water in that region.* The city built by Menes was called Men-nefer, "the pleasant residence,"

which name the Greeks corrupted

into

" Memphis."
first

The

direct

descendants of Menes form the

dynasty, which,

according to Manetho, reigned 253 years. with these princes has come down to us. Menes, Teta (the Athothis of Manetho),

No monument
is

contemporary
successor of
built a

The immediate

mentioned as having

The name palace at Memphis, and as having written books on surgery. of the fifth king of the dynasty Hespu, or Hesep-ti (Usaphaidos, M.)t " Funeral Ritual " as the author of sacred is frequently mentioned in the
writings.

Lastly, the fragments of

Manetho record under the

terrible

reign of

the seventh king,

the
lists

Semempses, a

plague.
of

comparison of

of

Manetho with the second Tablet

at once,

of Sakkarah
to the

proves that the empire founded by

Abydos and the Tablet Menes was not extended

on the
dynasty was passed in

whole of Egypt

and without a

struggle, but that,

contrary, a great part of the time of the

conflicts

first

between princes who reigned

dynasty, to which
also

some at

Memphis and

others at

Abydos.
3.

The second
It
first,

Manetho

assigns nine kings, lasted

302 years.
the
for

was

originally from This,

is

no

distinction

made between them

of

and probably related to in the Turin papyrus.

The remains

of

the

Dyke
is

Menes were discovered by M.

by Dr.
Brugsch
will
in

Mariette,

and its existence "Histoired'Egypt." t The forms of the names

mentioned
the
lists

his

in

of

Manetho

be indicated

in this

way

(M).


204
Tt

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlint
llic

seems very prolialile karah. was intended for

tlie

threat

Pyramid,

l)uilt

in stc|")S al
tliis

Sak-

scjiulchre of the second kintj of

dynasty,

was estal)lished, it is said, the worship of some sacred animals, amongst others the hull Aj^is, who was considered to be a living manifestation of the god I'htah, and was worThis Pyramid, therefore, is the oldest monument shipped at Memphis. in Egypt, and with the exception of the ruins of the Tower of Pahel, The low and narrow door, with a lintel the most ancient in the world. of white limestone covered with hieroglyphics, the jambs decorated in a manner unknown elsewhere, with alternate small pieces of limestone and cubes of green enamelled earth, which formed the entrance to the sepulchral chamber of this Pyramid, was, in 1845, carried by M. Lepsius to the Museum at Berlin. It is highly characteristic of an art still in its infancy and attempting its first steps but it shows that the ingenious system of Egyptian writing was even then fully established.
M.),
l)v

Kekeu (Cechous,

wlioni also

To
M.),

the third king of this second dynasty,

is

Ba-neter-en (Binothris,

attriliuted
;

a law declaring females capable of ascending the

throne of Egypt
history.

this law, in fact, was often re-enacted in the course of Legendary prodigies are related of the reign of the seventh

king, Neferkera (Nepherkeres, M.).*

king, Sesocris,

Lastly,

it is

said that the eighth sculpture,

was a

giant.

We

possess

some remains of

which we may venture, perhaps, to refer to the last reigns of this dynasty first, the tomb of a high functionary called Thoth-hotep, discovered by the excavations of M. Mariette in the Necropolis of Sakkarah, where the dead of the great city of Memphis were buried
:

also three standing statues of limestone,

representing Sepa, another

functionary, and two of his sons, with which the Museum of the Louvre In studying them we remark a rudeness and indecision of is enriched. style, showing that at the end of the second dynasty Egyptian art was still feeling its way, and was still imperfectly formed. 4. When this family had become extinct, a dynasty, originally from Memphis, seized the throne, forming the third, and to it a The second of its kings, Tsesduration of 214 years is attributed. hor-tsa (Tosorthrus, M.), is said to have occupied himself specially In this with medical science, writing, and the art of stone cutting. royal family we meet with the first of the many conquerors who went out from the land of the Pharaohs Manetho says that the head of this family, Seker-nefer-ke (Necherophes, M.), subdued a part of the Lybians, who were terrified by an eclipse, t On the rocks of Sinai a
;

The Nile flowed

water.
1*

fear,

for eleven days with a mixture of honey and Tr. "The Lybians revolted from the Egyptians and submitted through on a sudden increase of the moon." Manetho (Syncdliis). Tr.

FOURTH AND FIFTH DYNASTIES.

bas-relief has
last

205

been found, which represents Snefru (Sephouris, M.), king but one of the dynasty, subduing the nomadic tribes of llie
of Arabia Petrrea.

Anu

of one of the great officers of this king, named Amten, has been discovered at Sakkarah, and transported to the Museum of Art has advanced since the last reign, but is still far from perBerlin. The pictures on this tomb, which is of an antiquity so great fection.

The tomb

as to surpass imagination, assist us in penetrating the interior

life

of the

was constructed. It shows us Egyptian civilisation as completely organised as it was at the time of the Persian or Macedonian conquest, with all the marks of individuality and of a long previous The inhabitants of the Nile valley had already domesticated existence. nearly all kinds of animals which are useful to man, and even some
epoch when
it

that

we know

only in a wild

state.

The

ox, the dog, aquatic birds,

had long since been brought into use, and the skill of breeders had been The only beast of able to produce numerous varieties of each species. burden is the ass neither the horse nor the camel seem to have been as The Egyptian language was completely formed, yet known in Egypt. with its peculiar characteristics, distinct from other allied idioms.
;

Hieroglyphic writing
distinguished by
its all

is

the complexity that

found on the monuments of the first dynasties, it preserved to the last day of

existence.

Section IV. Fourth and Fifth Dynasties Age of the Great Pyramids.
I.

With

the fourth dynasty, Memphite, like the third, and wliich

history

reigned 284 years,

and monuments more numerous. This was the age of the three Great Pyramids, built by the three kings, Khufu (the Cheops of Herodotus), Shafra (Chefren), and Menkara (;\Iycerinus). Khufu was a warlike king the bas-reliefs

becomes

clearer,

of Sinai celebrate his victories over the Anu, who harassed the colonies of Egyptian workmen established on the peninsula for working the

But it is to the Pyramid that he owes the immortality of his name, which will be remembered as long as man exists. Herodotus gives us (Her. ii. 124) some details of the construction of this gigantic monument, mixed up, however, with puerile anecdotes that seem to 100,000 men, who were belong to an exact and authentic tradition.
copper mines.*
Brugsch, in a little work, IVanderunq nach dot TurJus-Minen Sinai Halbinsel, contends that the mines chiefly worked in the Sinaitic Peninsula by the Egyptians were the Turquoise Mines, recently rediscovered and worked by our countryman, the late Major Macdonald.
* Dr.

und der

Tr.

2o6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

relieved every three moiilhs, were, he says,

in building this artificial

employed for thirty years mountain; the king, in his pride, intended it for his tomb, and it has remained, at any rate as regards bulk, the greatest of all the works of man. The whole of the people of the country were successively forced to the work and the labour was the
;

harder, in that the Egyptians had no machinery but ropes and rollers,
to drag the stones by main force on causeways, on an inclined plane, to the required height. The causeway which served to bring the stone from the quarries of Toora, on the other bank of the

and were compelled

summit of the Pyramid plateau, still remains, and has been itself alone worthy of the admiration of future generations. Little less must have been the work of building the Pyramids of Shafra and Menkera. The science in construction which these monuments exhibit is wonderful, and has never been surpassed. With all the progress of knowledge, it would be, even in our days, a prol)lem
Nile, to the

preserved as in

difficult to solve, to construct, as

the Egyptian architects of the fourth dynasty have done, in such a mass as that of the Pyramid, chambers and passages, which, in spite of the millions of tons pressing on them,

have

for sixty centuries preserved their original

shape without crack or

flaw.*

works Sphinx at Gizeh, in the neighbourhood of the three great Pyramids, an immense rock, sculptured and built into this form, seems to have been finished in the reign of Schafra. Close by it M. Mariette has discovered, buried in the sand of the desert, a vast temple, which seems from sure indications to belong to the same reign. It is entirely constructed of enormous
that these kings have left us.

The Pyramids

are not, however, the only great architectural

The

great

blocks of black or rose-coloured granite, and of oriental alabaster, without any sculpture or even ornament of any kind. Straight lines
alone, in the severest purity, are used in
2.
its

decoration.

The

early reigns of the fourth dynasty

in

the primitive history of Egypt.

mark the culminating point The splendour and riches of the

is suffi-

country seem to have been very great under these princes, as

ciently proved

by the immense buildings erected during the period. The boundaries of the monarchy then extended as far as the cataracts the capital was Memphis, and the whole vitality of the empire was
concentrated in that neighbourhood.

But the enoiTnous works of the Pyramids could only have been accomplished at the cost of frightful oppression. Forced labour laid an insupportable burden on the people. Manetho, Herodotus, and Diodorus Siculus repeat traditions proving that these princes, who
*

On

the Pyramids, see the splendid

The Pyramids of Ghizeh.

work of Colonel Howard Vyse, London, iSoo 1812.

THE PYRAMID BUILDERS.

had
laid such

207

were remembered with According to these traditions, Khufu not only oppressed the people in taking them from the occupations of their daily life, but even shut up the temples and stopped the sacrifices he afterwards, however, repented, and became the author of a much esteemed religious book. Shafra is said to have followed the example of the tyranny and impiety of his predecessor, and by the popular verdict, the bodies of both kings were excluded from the splendid tombs they had prepared. Menkera did the same at the commenceheavy burdens on
their people,

hatred even after the lapse of ages.

ment of

his reign, but after\vards

amended

his ways, re-opened the

temples, and conducted public worship with a great degree of splendour

statement that one of the most important " Funereal Ritual" is said to have been dismystical chapters of the covered, in an ancient manuscript, during the reign of Menkera, and to have been published by that king. There is no doubt that these stories arc only popular and fabulous legends for example, the closing of the temples by Khufu and Shafra is expressly denied by inscriptions dated But the legend is not, however, entirely without hisin their reigns. torical foundation. Everything seems to show that the end of the fourth dynasty, immediately after the reigns of the Pyramid-building kings, was a time of revolution and trouble, caused by preceding oppressions. A comparison of the lists of Manetho with the monuments of the Necropolis of Sakkarah, shows that there were violent comthis last fact agrees

with

tlie

petitions for the throne during this period.

The splendid statues of Shafra in diorite, rose-coloured granite, alabaster, and basalt, which
decorated the temple near the Sphinx, have been found in pieces in a

which they liad been thrown during a revolutionary movement evidently not long after his reign. originally from Elephantine, at the 3. The fifth dynasty came southern extremity of Upper Egypt, and there possibly the kings generally resided, though at the same time Memphis was not deprived This dynasty numbered nine kings, whose names are of its importance. all found on the monuments, and who occupied the throne for 248 years. Their reigns seem to have been prosperous and peaceable, but we
well, into

cannot refer to anyone in particular as distinguished by any remarkable

event.

The

private

the fourth, very numerous.

monuments of the time of this dynasty are, like those of Near Memphis, particularly at Gizeh and
to light

Sakkarah, excavations have brought

the tombs

of a great

number
4.

of personages of high rank at the courts of one or other of the the aid of the inscriptions

kings of these dynasties.

By

on these tombs science

is

able

to

reconstruct

the

"Peerage" of Egypt under Khufu,

Shafra or

Menkera, as well as under the kings of the Elephantine dynasty.

In

2o8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

l*"yy])tinn

those ancient times

cratic basis.
It

society
in

was formed

(jii

an entirely aristo-

seems that Menes,

estabHshingroyaUy, had been the

chief of a revohition, similar to those in ancient India, which frequently

subjected the Brahmins to the absolute supremacy of the Kchatryas or

warriors.

The monuments of the primitive Egyptian dynasties show power concentrated in the hands of a small military caste, of an aristocracy to a certain extent apparently composed of conquerors, and
us
all

to

whom

the people quietly submitted.

Were

not these the

Ludim

of

Genesis, who, by establishing their supremacy over the Palhrusim, the

Naphtuhim, and the Anamim,

first

made Egypt one

united country

were but few in number, and all more or less related to the royal family, owing to the number of children brought up in the royal harems. The members of these families, like the great feudatories of Europe, succeeded to all the higher military and political offices, and transmitted from father to son the government of provinces. Like all ancient pagan aristocracies, they even possessed themselves of and monopolised all priestly functions.
families of this aristocracy

The

We

constantly find representations of scenes from domestic or agri-

on the walls of Memphite tombs of the fourth and fifth These pictures help us to investigate all the secrets of the patriarchal feudal life of the nobles of Egypt sixty centuries ago. We seem to visit the large and flourishing farms scattered over their estates we may know the numbers of their tlocks, and the heads of cattle counted by thousands their parks where antelopes, storks, geese of every species were domesticated and kept. We may even see them in their elegant villas, surrounded by respectful and obedient vassals, or
cultural life

dynasties.

rather serfs.

We

can

know

the flowers cultivated in their gardens

see

the troops of dancers and singers maintained in their mansions to supply

on were passionately fond both of hunting and fishing and for both of these amusements they found as many opportunities as they could desire on the numerous canals by which the For the service also of these great country was everywhere intersected.
details of their field sports are depicted

amusement.

The minutest

these tombs.

We

see that they

personages of the aristocracy, the large square-sailed barks, frequently

depicted on the tombs, floated on the Nile, to be employed in a

commerce which everything proves to have been most extensive. 5. In these monuments of the fourth and fifth dynasty, art attains
the most remarkable degree of perfection.
strives
It
is

to
it

entirely realistic,

no attempt at the ideal. The figures of men are somewhat more thickset and rude than in the works of later schools, the relative proportions of different parts of the body are less exactly preserved, the muscles of the legs and arms are exaggerated. But in these sculptures of the primitive Memphite tombs there is nevertheless an elegance of composition, a simplicity and reality
above
all for

truth to nature, with

ART UNDER THE OLD EMPIRE.

of movement, a
priestly
life in all

209

"Canon

the figures, which the immutable laws of the of Proportions" destroyed in later times, however

mucli

in

other respects art

art,

may have

improved.
it

In this

first

and

free de-

velopment of Egyptian

imperfect though

was, there were the germs

of more than Egypt ever possessed, even in its most brilliant period. Art then had a life, afterwards destroyed by sacerdotal restrictions. If
the Pharaonic artists could have preserved this secret,
that

when

acquiring

incomparable harmony of proportion and majesty which they possessed in a greater degree than any other artists in the world, they would have equalled the Greeks, and two thousand years before them

would have attained to absolute perfection in art. But this phase of genius was never allowed full scope and thus their style remained imperfect, and the glory of reaching that point which can never be surpassed was reserved for others.
;

6. In the decoration of the subterranean tombs of which we speak, and of the sarcophagi sometimes found in them, there is a peculiar architectural style, different from that of more recent monuments a style characteristic of the Pyramid period. In this system of architecture, all the decoration consists of an arrangement of narrow vertical and horizontal bands \vith a convex surface. This is in imitation of build-

ings constructed of light timber, such as sycamore

and palm, the two whose trunks were not even squared before being used. Also very often in tombs the sepulchral chamber is roofed by beams of stone, rounded so as to represent the trunks of palm trees. The Egyptians therefore had not commenced, as was long believed, by leading the life of troglodytes, or cavern-dwellers. Their most ancient edifices were constructed of wood, built in the midst of the Kile valley; and in the first subterranean tombs in the flanks of the Arabian and Lybian mountains, they copied the style and arrangement of these slight buildings, and this type always remained in use for their
most

common

trees

of Egypt,

dwellings.
7. But we have not only monumental inscriptions of ages, when we might be inclined to believe that the whole human race must have been
still

a state of complete barbarism, for, favoured by the climate of so miraculously preservative, even sheets of fragile papyrus have Egypt,
in

lasted fifty centuries,

and come down to us almost entire. The Imperial Library of Erance possesses a book dated in the reign of Assa-Tatkera (Tatkeres, M.), last king but one of the fifth dynasty, written by an old man of the royal family, named Phtah-hotep. It is a sort of handbook
of good manners for young people, a treatise on practical morality,

how to pass through the world with propriety and does not belong to a higher moral sphere than the books of the Chinese Confucius. find in it the rales to be observed in a community, and rules for making one's way in the world, without restraining
teaching them
success;
it

We


210

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

or, as the

any of the passions,

jargon of a false philosophy

basis of all morality

now says, any

in

of the instincts of nature.

The

and good order

the

book

of Phtah-hotep

is

filial

obedience, obedience also to the established

government, supposed to be invested with a truly paternal authority. " The son who obeys the word of his father," it says, " will therefore " The obedience of a son to his father is a live to a good old age."
joyful thing

dear to his father, and his fame shall be known " The disobedient sees knowledge in ignorance, to all men on earth." virtue in vice; every day he without fear commits every kind of wickedHis daily life is what the wise ness, and thus is dead w hile he lives. man knows to be death, and curses follow him as he walks in his \\ays." The reward of him who observes these precepts follows, long life and " The obedient son shall be happy in his obedience; the king's favour. he shall grow old and shall obtain favour." The author cites himself as an example, " Thus I have become an old man on earth; I have lived no years in favour with the king, and with the approval of the elders: I have done my duty to the king, and stood in the place of his favour." A second treatise contained in the same manuscript, but of which only a few pages remain, was a collection of proverbs similar to those Some of the maxims are as follows " Happiness of king Solomon.
is

He

finds every place alike good, but a little misfortune will abase a very

great

man."

"

of a slave
his

who
:

finds

good word shines more than an emerald in the hand " The wise man is satisfied with it in the mire."
is

knowledge

good

the place of his heart; sweet are his lips."

Section V.

From the Sixth to the Eleventh Dynasty Temporary Decline of Egyptian Civilisation.
the death of the last king of the
origin according to
fifth

I.

On

dynasty, a

new

family,

of Memphitic
first

Manetho, came
it is

to the throne.

The

king Ati (Othoes, M), was,

said, after a reign of thirty years

assassinated

by

his guards.

great portion of his reign

was no doubt

occupied by internal dissensions, for the monuments name two competitors for the throne, Teta,* and Userkera, who were proljably
descendants of the former dynasty.

But his son and successor, Pepi Merira (Phios, M.), was one of the most glorious and powerful kings. The whole countiy was suiiject to his sceptre, for his monuments have been found in all parts of Egypt, from Syene to Tanis. Like Khufu,
* In illustration of the remarks of M. Mariette, quoted in sees. 2, 3, it may be mentioned that Teta seems to have been accepted as the legitimate king by the compilers of the Tablet of Sakkarah and of the Tr. second Tablet of Abydos.

PERIOD OF CIVIL WARS.

Pepi
I.

211

was a warlike

kint^

at this epoch, the

cataracts of the Nile,

particularly the secoiul, at

Wady

Haifa, did not, as they

now

do, pre-

sent an insurmountable obstacle to navigation,

and towards the south

the frontier of E<^ypt was open to the incursions of the

migratory negro people.

Wa-Wa, a Pepi reduced these enemies to obedience.

An unknown
charis),

tribe

of southern Bedouins (possibly the present Bis-

were also subdued by the Egyptian arms. Finally, to the north, the hostile nomadic tribes received from Pepi the chastisement they had drawn on themselves by their aggressions on Egyptian work-

men engaged
fact of great

in the

copper mines,

in the Sinaitic Peninsula.

We may
:

remark, in the inscriptions relative to the campaigns of Pepi Merira, a

importance
find

in the history of the migrations of races

the

negroes are there represented as immediately adjoining the Egyptian

frontier,

and we

no trace of the Cushite Ethiopians,

whom

subse-

quent evidence shows us to have occupied just that part of the Nile
valley, after

having driven the negroes southward.

When

the sixth

dynasty ruled Eg\'pt, the Hamitic race of Cush had not established

which country it came no doubt by the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, but still remained in Asia, where it had founded a powerful empire at Babylon. Pepi Merira was not, moreover, a mere Avarrior king, he occupied himself in public works. It is proved from one of his monuments that he opened the route across the desert from Gheneh in Upper Egypt, to the port of Kosseir on the Red Sea, established stations, and dug wells for the benefit of caravans. A second Pepi, surnamed Nefer-kera (Phiops, M.) is remarkable as having (a fact unique in histor)') reigned one whole century of the events of this
itself in Africa, to
;

long reign we, however,

years, troubles

know

next to nothing.

But immediately after this long reign, and probably even in its later and civil discord broke out, more serious and more Mentemsaf (Menviolent than had ever before been seen in Egypt. thesuphis, M.), the successor of Pepi-Neferkera was assassinated after a reign of only one year. His sister Neit-aker (whose name signifies
"victorious Neit," or Minerva), the Nitocris of the Greeks, then seized
the reins of government.

Manetho
in

calls

her " the red-cheeked lieauty,"

and agrees with Herodotus

traditions, her

praising, according to the sacerdotal

wisdom
the

as well as her beauty.

She struggled energeti-

cally against
countr}',

revolutionary spirit which

capital.

and had even reached the

At

tended to divide the the same time, during

supposed, to

a reign of twelve troubled years, Neit-aker repaired, or rather completed, the third

pyramid of Gizeh, intending,

it is

make

it

her

own

sepulchre, without, however, disturbing the sepulchral

cham-

have been obliged, during part of her reign, to temporise with the murderers of her brother, but without resigning the intention of revenging his death. .She one day invited
to

ber of Menkera.

She seems

P 2

212

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

to a subterranean gallery,
let

them
all.

and wIiHc

tlicy

the waters of the Nile,

in throutjli a secret culvert,

were enjoying a feast, drowned them

reprisals

She was herself obliged

of their partisans.
2.

commit suicide to escape the Neit-aker was the last of her dynasty.
to

History, though so very fragmentary during the following epoch,

gives us reason at any rate to think that Egypt then entered on a long

period of convulsion, dismemberment, and political weakness.

The

seventh dynasty numbered in one version of the story, five kings in less
than three months, and in another and
seventy kings in seventy days.
still

more expressive
its

tradition,

Primitive art attained

highest point

under the sixth dynasty. In the tombs of this period are found those beautiful and graceful statues with rounded smiling face, thin nose, btoad shoulders, and muscular legs, of which the museum of the Louvre possesses a remarkable specimen in the sitting figure of a scribe, now in the centre of one of the rooms on the ground floor. But from the time of the civil commotions in which Neit-aker perished, Egyptian civilisation underwent a sudden and unaccountable eclipse. From the end of the sixth dynasty to the commencement of the eleventh Maneabsolutely silent.

tho reckons 436 years, and for this whole period the monuments are Egypt seems then to have disappeared from the

rank of nations

and when
career,

this

menced a new

entirely independent

long slumber ended, civilisation comof the past. Did the

empire of the Pharaohs during this interval of absolute darkness suffer from some invasion unknown to history ? and do the lists of Manetho contain only the indigenous and legitimate dynasties who remained
shut up in their capital
?

Doubtless, in treating of Egypt, the idea of

Its

invasion naturally occurs to us.

inexhaustible resources of
to the attacks of
its

geographical position and

tiie

rendered this country peculiarly liable neighbours. It is also to be observed, that by

its soil

comparing the skeletons of mummies from the tombs anterior to the

sixth with those subsequent to the eleventh dynasty,
in the

we may

observe,

shape of the

skulls, differences sufficient to lead us to the con-

clusion that the type of the population had been

interval

much modified
it

in the

by the introduction of a new element. But as monumental proofs are absolutely wanting, was not due
to

would be rash

to affirm that this sudden echpse of Egyptian civilisation, unaccountable

after the sixth dynasty,

one of those almost inexplicable

life

seasons of weakness occurring sometimes in the

of nations, as well

That a period of absolute decadence did then occur is as of men. certain, and the primitive civilisation of Egypt tlied with the sixth dynasty, to be resuscitated in later days. modem 3. Thus ends that period of nineteen centuries, which "The spectacle then presented scholars know as the " Old Empire."

by Egypt," says M. Mariette,

in his excellent history of that countiy.


THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.
213

"is worthy of close attention. At a time when all the rest of the world was plunged in barbaric darkness, when nations who in later
still

times were to play so considerable a part in the world's history were in a savage state, the banks of the Nile were peopled by a wise
race,

and polished
organisation

of functionaries and employes,

nation.

and a powerful monarchy, supported by a formidable already governed the

destinies of the

From

the very earliest times,

we

see that

Egyptian civilisation was complete, and future ages, however numerous they might be, could do but little to improve it. In some respects, Egypt, on the contrary, retrogrades, for no other period has been able to produce monuments like the Pyramids."

The Egyptian

priests

then were right in saying to Solon,

when he

visited their sanctuaries,

"You

Greeks are but children."

CHAPTER

II.

THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.

Section

Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties The Labyrinth and Lake Moeris.

I.

I. Thebes The holy city

did not exist in the days of the glory of the Old Empire. of

of anarchy and obscurity, succeeding, as

have been founded during the period we have said, to the sixth dynasty. Here was the birthplace of that renewed civilisation, that new monarchy, we are accustomed to call the Middle Empire, the middle age in fact of ancient Egypt a middle age anterior to the earliest ages of all other history. From Thebes came the six kings of the eleventh dynasty, called alternately Entef and Muntuhotep, who struggled energetically with the separatists of the Delta, represented by the ninth and tenth dynasties of Manetho, perhaps even against foreign conquerors, and in the end subjected all Egypt to their sceptre. One of these Princes is constantly designated by the epithet "great " (Aa), and was doubtless the one who achieved this result. Here we again quote the excellent remarks of M. Mariette " When with the eleventh dynasty, we see Egypt awake from her long slumber, all old traditions appear to be forgotten, the proper names used in ancient families, the titles of functionaries, the style of writing, and even the religion all seem new. This, Elephantine, and Memphis, are no longer the favourite capitals. Thebes for the first time l)ecomes the seat of sovereign power. Egypt, moreover, has lost a considerable portion of her territory, and the authority of her legitimate kings hardly extends
seems
to

Amen

214
beyoiul the

ANCIENT HISTORY OF
liiuilctl distiicl

11

IK KAST.
Tlie study of the inonu-

of

liic

Tlicl);vul.

mcnts cuiifinns tliese general views; tlicy are rude, primitive, somotinies coarse and when we look at them we may well believe that I'^gypt, under the eleventh dynasty, again passed through a period of infancy, as she had already done under the third dynasty." 2. A dynasty, probably related to, and originally from, the same place as these first Theban ])rinces, succeeded them. Manetho designates
;

this as the twelfth.

All the nionarclis are called Osortasen, or

Amen-

emhe, except the

Tills twelfth

last, a (juecn

named Ra-sebek-nefru

(Skemio])hris, M.).

prosperity, of peace at

dynasty reigned for 213 years, and its epoch was one of home and glorious achievements abroad. In
I.,

the time of the second king, Osortasen

its

not only had Egypt regained

lost to

natural frontiers, but had

reconquered Arabia Petrrea,

her

during the time of the

civil discords.

Nubia
I.

also

was subjected
stele at

to the

authority of the Pharaohs.

Osortasen

engraved on a

Wady

Haifa, in the south of Nubia, and on the rocks of Sinai, a record of his
exploits.

The Pharaohs
centuries, that led

of the twelfth dynasty

commenced

the attempt to

carry out that great political scheme, persisted in for

more than

thirty

them

to claim as their right every country watered

by

the Nile.
cataract
is

At

this

time a slate was established between the

first

to

and the south of Abyssinia, which was to ancient, what Soudan modern, Egypt. This was " the land of Gush," or Ethiopia.
precisely defined boundaries, with

With no
territory,
origi)!

no unity of organisation or

Ethiopia was inhabited by numeroufe peoples differing

race, but the

and

bulk of the nation was composed of Cushites

of the race of

Ham,

w'ho had established themselves there since the

time of the sixth Egyptian dynasty. These Cushites seem to have been, under the twelfth dynasty, formidable enemies to Egypt ; towards Ethiopia the forces of the empire at that time marched to oppose the Cushites, were built the fortresses of Kumneh and Semmeh on either bank of the Nile, beyond the second cataract, marking the southern Whatever at this period may limit of the em]5ire of the Pharaohs.
;

have been the political state of other parts of the world, the Egyptian forces under the twelfth dyn;vsty never left the banks of their sacred
river.
I., with but the real conqueror of whom Ethiopia, the great military prince of the dynasty, was Osortasen III., The Temple erected there the founder of the fortress of Semneh.

Amenemhe

II.

continued the southern wars of Osortasen

in

he had been associated

power

many

centuries later in his honour,

testifies to

served as his subordinates,

the profound
country.

a temple where two other gods the reality of his power, and to
left

impression

the grandeur of his reign had

in

the

The

very steles placed by

him

at

Semneh

to

mark

the frontier

CONSTRUCTION OF LAKE

iMOERIS.

215

of Egypt have also been found. On them is an inscription forbidding negroes to enter the land except to trade in cattle. This prince was buried in the brick pyramid of Dashur ; his religious name was

Ra-sha-keu, and he may be identified with the ancient and wise legisAsychis, of whom Herodotus speaks as having regulated the law of mortgages.* Two inscriptions of the reign of his successor Amenlator,

emhe
3.

state that the Asiatic copper

speak of a great victory he gained over the negroes, and mines always belonged to him. During these wars, which have conferred a never-fading lustre on
III.

names of the Osortasens and Amenemhes, Egypt was strengthened mtemally by the vigour then apparent in all branches of civilisation.
the

Works
rate,

as marvellous as those of the fourth dynasty, but, in part at

more useful
shall

the Labyrinth and Lake Moeris, were then executed.

(ch. v. sec. 9. 2,)

any

We

speak of the Labyrinth

principal

monuments of Egypt.

estimation of those of the

when we enumerate the As for Lake Moeris, it was, in the ancients who saw it, one of the wonders of

and nothing could better prove the high state attained by engineering skill under the twelfth dynasty, than this work, of which a Frenchman, M. Linant, was the first to find the remains.

the Pharaonic ages,

We
"If its

have already spoken of the importance of the Nile to Egypt.

periodical rise is insufficient, a portion of the land is not inundated, and consequently remains uncultivated ; if, however, the river leaves its bed with too much violence, it carries away the dykes, sub -

merges the

villages, and injures the land it ought to fertilise. Egypt thus perpetually oscillates between two equally dreaded scourges. Im-

Amenemhe III. conceived and executed a gigantic project. On the west of Egypt there is an oasis of cultivable land, the Fayum, buried in the midst of the desert, and attached by a sort of isthmus to the country watered by the Nile. In
pressed with a sense of these dangers,
the centre of this oasis
valley of the Nile
;

is

a large plateau about the same level as the

to the west, however, a considerable depression of

the land produces a valley occupied by a natural lake

more than
centre

ten
this

leagues

in

length,

the

'

Birket

Kerun.'

In

the

of

Amenemhe undertook the formation of an artificial lake with an area of ten millions of square metres. If the rise of the Nile was insufficient, the water was led into the lake and stored up for use, not
plateau

only in the Fayum, but over the whole of the left bank of the Nile as far as the sea. If loo large an inundation threatened the dykes, the vast reservoir of the artificial lake remained open, and when the lake
itself

overflowed, the surplus waters were led by a canal into the Birket

Kerun.

"The two names

given in

Egypt

to

this

admirable

work

of

Her., Book

II., ch. 136.


ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.
'

2i6

Amenemlie III. desei-ve to be recorded. Of one, Meri, that is the Lake par excellence, the Greeks have made Moeris, a name erroneously npphed by them to a kinj^; whilst the other, P-iom, 'the Sea,' has become, in the mouth of the Arabs, the name of the entire province, Fayum, gifted by the genius of one of the kings of the twelfth dynasty with this precious element of fertility." Mariette.
'

most splendid periods

is thus, as we see, one of the Egyptian history; it marks, perhaps, the highest point attained by, and the most flourishing epoch of, Pharaonic civilisation. The invasion of the Shepherds occurred some time afterwards ; and their ravages, principally directed to all that recalled the

4.

The time

of the twelfth dynasty

in

princes of this dynasty, have

left

none of

their great edifices standing.

Amenemhes, nothing remains beyond two obelisks at Heliopolis and the Fayum, and some
the public buildings of the Osortasens and
beautiful colossal statues, discovered in the excavations of
at

Of

M. Mariette

Tanis and Abydos.

We

have, however, magnificent specimens of

the art of this period in the numerous private fimereal steles

now

pre-

served in our museums, and also in the celebrated tombs of Beni

order, subsequently adopted

Hassan, where the fa5ades show the first and original type of the Doric by the Greeks. We may judge from these

tombs that the architecture of the twelfth dynasty had no relation to that of the primitive ages. It is an entirely new art, and we shall see that its mles were again followed, when, after a second eclipse, Egyptian art once more revived at the dawn of that historical period called the " New Empire." What we know most of in the art of the twelfth d3'nasty is its sculpture, which, favoured by a period of peace, arrived at a degree of perfection hardly sui-passed by the best woi"ks of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. The predominant feature in scnlpture of this age is delicacy, elegance, and harmony of proportion. The reality and life of the primitive school no longer exist. Art has no longer the same liberty; it is subject to the fetters of priestly rule. The hieratic "canon of proportion" has already been established in the form we shall meet with after the expulsion of the Shepherds ; no vestige remains of the primitive art but the energy and boldness with which the muscles of the arms and legs are rendered. The hardest, the least promising materials, are worked with sucli delicacy and finish of execution as, even in But if the sculptiue of the colossal works, to resemble a cameo. twelfth dpiasty surpasses in delicacy the most perfect monuments of the eighteenth dynasty, it has not the monumental grandeur of the
productions of the latter epoch.
5.

The

curious subteiTanean

tioned, are those of great personages, high functionaries of state,

tombs of Beni-hassan, already menand

life

governors of provinces,

who

led a

similar to that of the great lords

"

THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH DYNASTIES.

of the old empire, and
aristocracy.

217

who

probably also constituted an hereditary

Perhaps the most interesting is that of Ameni, where the Egypt of the twelfth dynasty is, so to speak, photographed. On one side we see the beasts they are fattening the land is being cultivated
;

with ploughs constructed like those

now

in use

by the Fellahs of modern

cattle,

Egypt

corn

is

being harvested and trodden out by

feet.

who

tread

the sheaves under their

On

another side
;

we

see the navigation of

the Nile; large ships being built or loaded

elegant furniture being

made

of precious woods, and garments being prepared.

In a long inscription

Ameni himself speaks, and relates the story of his life. As a general he had made a campaign in Ethiopia, and had been charged with the protection of the caravans bringing to Coptos across the desert the gold from the mines. As governor of the province he thus sums up his administration: "The whole land was sown from north to south. Thanks were given me by the king's household for the tribute of large cattle. Nothing was stolen from my stores. I myself laboured, and No little child was ever ill-treated, all the province was in full activity. I have never troubled the fisherman, nor widow oppressed by me. No scarcity took place in my time, and a nor disturbed the shepherd. bad harvest brought no famine. I gave equally to the widow and married woman, and in my judgments I did not favour the great at the

expense of the poor.

Section
1.

II.

Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties.

the history of the twelfth dynasty

is clear and well numerous monuments, there is, nevertheless, no known, illustrated by period in the annals of Egypt more obscure than the one closing with It is one long series of revolutions, troubles, the thirteenth dynasty. and internal dissensions, closed by a terrible catastrophe, the greatest and most lasting recorded in Egyptian history, which a second time interrupted the march of civilisation on the banks of the Nile, and The dynasties of this for a while struck Egypt from the list of nations. epoch are represented in the extracts from Manetho merely by the total and, moreover, the different duration of the government of each versions we possess of these extracts do not agree as to the number of kings and the length of their reigns, or even sometimes of their
;

Although

origin.
2.

The

ceding.
years.

thirteenth dynasty was of Theban origin, like the two preManetho assigns to it sixteen kings, and a duration of 453 The names of the kings have for the most part been found on
all

the monuments, nearly

being either Sevek-hotep or Nofre-hotep.

;

No
the

building of this dynasty has been preserved

steles

but

we may judge by

and

statues of this time, discovered in the excavations at Tanis

2i8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and Abydos, as well as by some frai^inents of admirable sculpture ])rein the museums of Europe, that Eyjypt, at any rate durint; the early ages of the dominion of this new royal family, had lost nothing of its ancient prosperity, that she still remained mistress of her whole territory, and was internally as prosperous as under the twelfth dynasty. The silence of the monuments does not permit us to form even a conjecture on the subject of the wars of these kings. We may conclude, however, from the presence of a colossus of the thirteenth dynasty in the island of Argo, near Dongolah, that Egypt had at this time extended her frontier towards the south. Moreover, a fragment of a colossus in rose-coloured granite, which was in later times appropriated by King Amun-hotep HI., of the eighteenth, would seem, from its "style, to belong to the time of the thirteenth dynasty. This fragment is now in the Museum of the Louvre, and bears on its base a long list of subjugated negro nations. An inscription of the same date, engraven on a rock at El Hammamat, a station on the route to the port ot Kosseir on the Red Sea, speaks of the extensive commerce then carried on in precious stones with Southern Arabia, and shows that Egyptian influence w^as then undisputed in the latter country. 3. A curious peculiarity belonging to this epoch deserves notice, and throws new light on the physical history of the valley of the Nile. There are at Semneh lofty rocks near the river, bearing, at a height of seven metres above the present water level, hieroglyphic inscriptions. Now the translation of these inscriptions proves that the Nile, which under the eighteenth dynasty was at its present level in the time of the inundation, under the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties rose seven metres higher. This enormous change must be attributed to the gradual wearing away of the granite rock, the natural dam that formerly kept the upper part of the river at a much higher level, and at one of the cataracts of the Nile, probably at Semneh, produced falls like those of Niagara, or of the Rhine near Schaffhausen. At that time the Nile, forming a deep and wide sheet of water above Semneh, must have watered vast regions, now partly desert, such as Dongolah, Fazoql, Southern Nubia, and the Isle of Meroe. But the river, by the long continued action of its waters, wore away piece by piece the natural barrier of rocks opposed to it, the remains of which even now obstruct the current. In the same way the Amazon has cut through the living rock the celebrated defile of Manzeriche; the Danube has, one after the other, drained the Rhine has worn a passage its five basins or primitive lakes between the Black Forest and the Vosges and lastly, the Niagara, ceaselessly wearing away the rock over which it falls, recedes insensibly, at a rate that may be calculated within a few hundred years, towards
served
;

Lake Erie, and when it has reached famous cataract will cease to exist.

this point, the lake as well as the

The

study of the alluvium of the

INVASION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

219

Nile has revealed the existence of three successive levels. The learned Sir Gardner Wilkinson, from his geological observations, has fixed the date of the chief of these changes at from fifteen to seventeen centuries before our era.

that the change

But as positive monumental statements prove had already taken place before the expulsion of the Shepherds, we must ante-date the rupture of the natural barriers of the Upper Nile three or four centuries, and place it in the interval between the thirteenth and eighteenth dynasties.
thirteenth dynasty that we have mendominion extended over the ^^Jlole territory of Egypt, are those of its earlier kings. We have no contemporary
4.

All the

monuments of the
its

tioned, proving that

monuments of the
only

princes

who

continued this line; their names are

"Hall of Ancestors" at Karnak, or the fragments of papyrus of Turin. Nothing, therefore, expressly forbids our adopting the opinion proposed by many modem scholars, and in itself probable enough, that towards the close of the thirteenth (Theban) dynasty, the fourteenth (the Xoite of Manetho)
royal
lists

known from

like that of the

The division of Egypt into and hostile kingdoms, as well as the weakness necessarily resulting from the contest, may have been among the chief causes that facilitated the success of the Shepherd invasion. We know nothing of the history of this Xoite dynasty. The extracts from Manetho mention seventy kings, a statement evidently exaggerated the number
established itself as a rival in the Delta.

two

rival

of years assigned for

its

duration

differs,

the most probable

it

is

184 years.
partly con-

The

thirteenth

Theban

dynasty, admitting that

was thus

rest of the

temporary, would have reigned only 269 years over all Egypt, and the time over the southern provinces alone, and in antagonism with the rebels of the Delta.

Section III
I.

Invasion
in
i.

and Dominion ok the Shepherds.

Manetho,

says (Against Ap.,

a fragment preserved by the historian, Josephus, 15), "There was a king of ours whose name was

Amintimaos" (an evident corruption of the Greek copyists). " Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us and
;

there came, after a surprising manner,

eastern parts,

men

of ignoble birth out of the

and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our it by force, yet without our hazarding a battle with them. So when they had gotten those that governed us under their power, they afterwards burned down our cities and demolished the temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner nay, some they slew, and led their children and wives into slavery. " He adds also, " This whole nation was called Hyksos, that
country, and with ease subdued
;

is,

'shepherd kings';

for in the sacred

language

Hyk

signifies

Khig,

220

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

:

and Sos, in llie ordinary dialect, Shepherds." The two words here given have been found in the hieroglyphic inscriptions the first under
the second under the form Shasou, as the designation of Bedouins. Nevertheless, all Egyptian monuments known up to this time describe the invaders, called in the fragment of Manetho Hyksos, by the name of "Mena," Shepherds.
tlie

the form Ilak, as

name

of the chiefs of Semitic

trilics

The

study of the

vastations consequent on the invasion.

monuments proves the reality of the frightful deWith one single exception, all

the temples built prior to that event have disappeared, and nothing

can be found of them but scattered ruins, bearing traces of a violent Very soon, however, after the first subjugation of the whole land by the invaders, the native kingdom of the Thebaid was
destruction.

and afforded refuge to all the patriots who had at first ; Lower and Central Egypt alone remained under the direct tyranny of the strangers. During four centuries the princes of the Thebaid, who formed two successive dynasties, the fifteenth and sixteenth, had for neighbours, and probably for masters, these barbarous invaders. It wpuld be impossible to estimate the extent of the rain which fell on Egypt during these 400 years. The only certain fact we can mention is, that no one monument remains to teach us what became of the ancient splendour of Egypt under the Hyksos. We see, therefore, under the fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties Egyptian civilisation was again interrupted. Vigorous as it was, the impetus given by the Osortasens was suddenly arrested, the series of monuments broken, and this silence even tells the calamities Egypt underwent. 2. Who were the Shepherds ? We may say that their history, long obscure from the absence of any contemporary document, is partly elucidated by the recent discoveries of M. Mariette. They were a collection of all the nomadic hordes of Arabia and Syria ; but the chief part of them, as also the extracts from Manetho say, were Canaanites. Those who held the first rank the tribe directing the movement were the Khitas of the Pharaonic monuments, the Hittites of the Bible, whom Abraham had found already established in the land of Canaan.
re-constituted,
fled to Ethiopia

We
that,

shall see in the

that the invasion of

of this Manual treating of the Phoenicians, Egypt was the last episode in the great migration some generations earlier, had led the Canaanitish race from the

Book

shores of the Persian Gulf, their original seat, into Palestine.

When

Abraham
And,

arrived, the Canaanites

had been but a short time

in the land.

in fact, a papyrus in the Berlin Museum contains the report of an Egyptian explorer sent into Palestine under the twelfth dynasty, who found there none but nomadic Semitic tribes, and his narrative does not once mention the Canaanites. 3. "At length," says Manetho, in the continuation of the fragment

DOMINION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

already quoted, " they

221

name was he also lived at Memphis, and made both the upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in the places most proper for them. He chiefly aimed at securing the eastern parts, fearing that the Assyrians, then stronger than himself" (and this, in fact, as we shall see, was precisely at the time of the first great Chaldean Empire), " would be desirous of that kingdom and invade it. And as he found in the Tanitic province" (the manuscripts have, in error, " Saitic ") "a city veiy proper for his purpose, called
of themselves king, whose
;

made one

Saites (in

some other

versions, Salatis)

Avaris, after an old religious tradition, he rebuilt

strong by the walls which he built about

240,000 armed men.

his

corn and pay his

it, and made it very and by a garrison of Thither he came in the summer, partly to gather soldiers tlieir wages, and partly to exercise his

it,

soldiers

and

thereljy terrify foreigners."

;

Some

details are

added

as to

the successors of Saites

the

list

is

preserved in the extracts

made by

who says that they reigned 284 years, names them Anon (otherwise Bnon), Pachnan (or Apachnas), Staan, Archies, and Apophis. The same extracts mention the existence of a
the chronologer, Julius Africanus,

contemporary native dynasty, the seventeenth, in the Thebaid. We see by the monuments that, after a long time of absolute barbarism and savage devastations, the Shepherds in Lower Egypt, like the Tartars in China, allowed themselves to be conquered by the superior civilisation of the people they had subdued, and formed themselves into a regular dynasty, adopting Egyptian

The

first

king of the dynasty

called

Set-aa-peh-i-Nubti

the Saites of
mentioned

manners and names. Manetho, who was really

stele

is

in a

of

Ramses

II.

discovered at Tanis, identical with Avaris, as having, 400 years before the time of the latter prince, rebuilt the city,

(nineteenth dynasty),

and founded there the temple of the god Set, or Sutekh, the national god of the Hittites. The name of Anon in Manetho's lists is found as

Annoub in the commencement

Lastly,

fragments of the papyrus of Turin, followed by the

of another name,

Ap

.,

which must be Apachnas.

the real form of the

(in

name

of the last king of the dynasty,

Apepi

Greek, Apophis), has been found on

many monuments.

In

the reign (which lasted sixty-one years) of this Apepi, according to the express testimony of the extracts from Manetho, Joseph came into

Egypt, and was

see by

made

'

'

governor over

all

the land of Egypt. "

We

the narrative of the

Book

of Genesis that the court of this

king was entirely Egyptian.

contemporary Theban kings, we know the names of only Kames. A most important coincidence in relation to Biblical history is connected with this last king. In a royal proclamation we read the title "Sustainer of the World " written prefor the

As

the last two, Tiaaken, and

cisely in the

same form

(Tsaf-en-to, transcribed into

Hebrew Zaphnath)

222
recorded
the
in

ANCIENT TITSTORV OF TlIK EAST.

same
his

period,

famine.

Book of Genesis as when he had saved Afay we not conchide that

the

the surname Joseph received at the people of

Lower Egypt from

imilalcd by the

the economic reforms of Joseph,

and
4.

wise precautions against dearth, liad lieen

national sovereign of

Upper Egypt ? The moment when Egyptian civilisation,

thus revived in the
in the

at first

almost anniliilated

by

the invasion,

Thebaid under a completely

national form, and

foreign origin,
is

Delta under the government of rulers of

" The renaison the monuments. sance which is seen at Thebes," says M. Mariette, on whose great experience we are always glad to rely, "offers a singular analogy to
fully represented

that attributable to the

same

commencement of the nineteenth dynasty. The same arms, the same furniture is found in the tombs." The type of the sarcophagus became again what it had been under the
vases, the

eleventh dynasty

type entirely peculiar, and found only at these

two epochs. In allusion to the myth of the goddess Isis protecting the body of her brother Osiris (with whom the dead person is identified) by stretching over him her winged arms, the coffin is covered with a system of wings, painted with varied and brilliant colours. Moreover, at the time of this new Theban renaissance, ending in the national deliverance, individuals had, as under the eleventh dynasty, the names Entef, Ameni, Ahmes, and Aahhotep, so that we can hardly now distinguish between monuments separated by many centuries and a long
period of foreign rule.

The

discovery of the
is

dynasty,
Mariette.

monuments of the kings of the Shepherd one of the most valuable results of the excavations of M. They were found at Tanis, in the city where the Shepherds
capital

had

fixed the

of their monarchy,

and which they strove

is

to

and the workmanship more finished than in the monuments of the contemporary Theban dynasty. And, in fact, at this time the states governed by the kings of the invading race were more wealthy and peaceful than the states of the South, who were struggling hard to throw off the foreign yoke. These monuments show us to what extent the Shepherds had become real Pharaohs, adopting as their own the titles of the old dynasties. They had embraced the religion of Egypt, compelling only' the admission of their own god Set, cr Sutekh, into the pantheon, who, in the end remained there definitely, losing, however, the first rank which they had given him. Their manners and those of their subjects were Egyptian, with a small number of distinguishing customs brought from Asia.
style of art

embellish more than any other.

The

better,

We
ments,

have, finally, of the age of the Shepherds, only the remains of

sculpture, but not one single architectural

all in

work

the principal fragin gianite of

the

museum

at Cairo, are, first, a

group

most


EXPULSION OF THE SHEPHERDS.
perfect execution, representing

223

two personages in Egyptian costume, but with a large beard, and long hair, absolutely unknown to the true Mizraitc blood, holding in their outstretched hands a table of offerings
of
fish,

lotus flowers,

and aquatic

birds,

in a

word, of the various

natural productions of the lakes of the Delta. Also four large Sphinxes

(human-headed lions) in diorite, bearing the name of Apepi, the king Joseph served. These, in place of the ordinary head-dress of the Egyptian Sphinxes, have the head covered with a thick lion's mane, giving them a very peculiar appearance. The sculptures of the Shepherd period represent, moreover, a race of radically different type

whom

to that

of the Egyptians, a race evidently Semitic, with angular and

sharply cut features.

The

excavations at Tanis have also resulted in

proving the

fact that the last

reconstructed

Shepherd kings had restored in the temples by them, the statues of former ages belonging to the
alone, as a

religious edifices overturned in the first period of the invasion, engraving

on them their

own names

new

consecration.

Section IV.
I.

Expulsion of the Shepherds

however,

Ahmes.
a great

This

position of affairs could not,

last long,

was impending. As the power of the native and legitimate kings of the Thebaid increased, they attempted to throw off the yoke imposed on them by tlie strangers, to attack them in their fortresses in the Delta, and to free the sacred soil of Egypt from the presence of the barbarians. An invaluable papyrus in the Britisli Museum, apparently a fragment of a detailed chronicle of the national deliverance, relates the commencement of the struggle. It begins thus" It happened that the land of Eijypt fell into the hands of enemies, and there was no longer any king (of the whole country) at the time when this happened. And so the king Tiaaken was only Hak (vassal king) of Upper Egypt. These enemies were in Heliopolis, and their chief in Avaris The king Apepi chose the god Sutekh as his Lord, and did not sei-\'e any other god in the whole land. He built him a well constructed temple
crisis
.

to last for ever."

learned that the

The chronicle next relates that the Shepherd, Apepi, Theban prince, Tiaaken, refused to acknowledge and

the supremacy previously admitted.

worship his god Sutekh, which was equivalent to a formal rejection of Apepi was indignant, and summoned his rebellious vassal. Tiaaken replied to him with contempt. Armaments were made on both sides, and the war commenced. 2. It was long and sanguinary, and doubtless marked by vicissitudes

unknown

to us.

It

occupied the remainder of the reign of Tiaaken,

Kames, which seems, however, to have been very short, and great part of that of his son, Ahmes, the Amosis of Manetho, and terminated under this last prince. The struggle had its alternations
the entire reign of

224

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

liy tlie

of successes and reverses; but the Egyptians, step by step, gained on

the territory occupied
invaders.

" At

last," says
14)
rest

Manelho,

in a

fragment which Josephus also (Against Apion, i. " the Shepherds, subdued, were driven out of tlie
called Avaris.

has preserved,
of ICgypt, and

shut up in a place that contained 10,000 aroura (a superficial measure),

The Shepherds had

keep

built

round

all

this place a

high

and

strong wall, in order to

in safety all their possessions

and

plunder.

The
it

son of the king attempted to take this place

Ijy force,

and besieged

with 480,000 men; but, despairing of success, he

made a

That the enemy should leave Egypt, and go They then went away, carrying with in safety wherever they wished. them all their property their number amounted to 240,000, and they But fearing the power of took the road for Syria through the desert. the Assyrians, who were then masters of Asia, they built a city in that country, which is now called Jud?ea, and that large enough to contain this great number of men, and called it Jerusalem."
treaty on these conditions:
;

Here again the authority of Manetho

details,
it

is

confirmed, not in

all

the

is

true,

but in the general

particularly

facts,

by the testimony of the

by the funeral inscrijjtion of a superior the seamen, who took part in Egyptian officer, This inscription, of immense historical value, the war of liberation. and has been deeply relates the whole life of this personage, "When I studied by that eminent Egyptologist, M. de Rouge. was born in the fortress of Ilithyia " (in Upper Egypt), says the deceased Ahmes, in his epitaph, "my father was the lieutenant I was lieutenant in turn with of the late king, Tiaaken.

monuments, and

Ahmes,

chief of

...

went to the fleet to the north to fight I had the accompanying the king when he mounted his chariot. And duty of when the fortress of Tanis (Avaris), was besieged, I fought on foot before his majesty. This is what happened on board the ship called The Enthronisation of Memphis.' A naval battle took place on the Tlie praises water, called the Water of Tanis (Lake Menzaleh). of the king were bestowed on me, and I received a golden collar for The battle was south of the fortress. The bravery. fortress of Tanis was taken, and I carried off a man and two women,
I
; '

him in Ahmes.

the ship

named 'The

Calf,' in

the time of the late king

...

three in

all,

whom

his

majesty assigned to

me

as slaves."

The

capital

of the Shepherds once taken, the body of the nation passed the isthmus, and took refuge in Asia, where it rejoined its fellow countrymen, the

Canaanites of Palestine. Some of them, Ahmes permitted to retain and cultivate a portion of the land of which their ancestors had taken
possession.
tolerated in

They formed a foreign colony the same way as the Israelites.

in the east of

Lower Egypt,

and, by a singular coincidence,

we

find

Only they had no Exodus, the same people, in those

AHMES EXPELS THE SHEPHERDS.

strangers with robust limbs, grave

225
still

and elongated

faces,

who

inhabit

the banks of
3.

Lake Menzaleh.
for

Ahmes, seeking
Nofre-t-ari,

support during this contest against the Asiatic

in-

vaders, had turned to the south,

and had married an Ethiopian

princess,

named
features

whom

the

monuments always

represent with regular

rise to

and

straight nose, but black in colour.

This marriage gave

the pretensions of his successors to the sovereignty of Ethiopia.

Ahmes,

moreover, ruled over Nubia, as did the Theban princes of the seventeenth

But the Nubians had profited by the vicissitudes and embarrassments of the Northern war to revolt. No sooner was Tanis taken, than Ahmes returned towards Nubia and, as we know from the
dynasty.
;

epitaph of Ahmes, chief of the

dition, in a

also took part in this expefew battles completely subdued the rebels. The end of this reign was occupied in works of peace, in rebuilding the ruins and healing the woimds inflicted on the country by foreign
sailors,

who

dominion.
that

An

inscription at

Mount Mokattam, near

Cairo, tells us

Ahmes re-opened

the quarries there in the twenty-second year of

his reign, in order to restore the

Temples of Memphis and Thebes.

The

deliverance of the country and the total destruction of the foreign

signal for

power were the

an immediate and remarkable expansion of the long-fettered national life and civilisation. In a few years Egypt regained the five centuries lost through the Shepherd invasion. From the Mediterranean to the cataracts both banks of the Nile were covered with edifices. New roads were opened for commerce; and trade, agriculture and the arts received a fresh and vigorous impetus. The incomparable jewels discovered by M. Mariette on the mummy of the

Queen Aah-Hotep, widow

of

now

the pride of the

Museum

Kames, and mother of Ahmes, jewels of Cairo, and which were to be seen at

the Great Exhibition at Paris, in 1867, prove the high degree of excellence art and workmanship had attained to in Egypt a few years only
after the
this

end of the Shepherd invasion.

gold chain,
this

It is difficult to believe that

long

breast-plate

of open work,

this

diadem

with two golden sphynxes, this dagger chased with ornaments in

damascened gold, and the various articles composing this treasure, could have come from the workshop of a Theban jeweller at a time when the country had hardly emerged from the disasters of so many
centuries.
4.

The chronology
;

as well as
list

the

history of this period

becomes
in spite

clearer at this time

the

preserved by Josephus, and containing the

duration of the reigns from

Thothmes

I.

to

Ramses

II.,

may,

of some errors, in general easily rectified in the present state of knowledge, conduct us nearly to the reign of Ramses III., fixed by an
astronomical observation as contemporary with the end of the fourteenth
century before our era.
It
results,

therefore,

that

the eighteenth


ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

226

dynasty must have commenced nearly with the seventeenth century, antl tliis is the date we must assign to the expulsion of the Shepherds.

CHAPTER

III.

THE GREAT CONQUERORS OF THE NEW EMPIRE. FOREIGN INFLUENCE OF EGYPT.

Section
I.

The Eighteenth Dynasty. First

Ahmes. [Seventeenth
Century B.C.)

Successors of

1.

The

entire deliverance of the land inaugurates the reign of the

great and glorious dynasty, reckoned as the eighteenth.

Ahmes, though descended from the former Theban kings, owes it to his own glorious exploits that he is counted the founder of a new dynasty. He also opens the third historical period, known as the New Empire.

From
felt in

this

time for

the world.

many centuries, the power of Egypt was extensively The monarchy of the Pharaohs henceforth devoted its
was known, by the sad experience
invasion, policy led her to

chief efforts to the conquest of Asia. It

of five centuries, that danger to Egypt was always to be apprehended

from Asia.

So, to prevent a

new Shepherd

seek on their

own

territory all possible

enemies and invaders, to fight

to her

them

to the uttermost

and subdue them

own

sceptre.

But she

nevertheless did not abandon the traditional policy inaugurated by the

kings of the twelfth dynasty, of claiming the whole valley of the

Upper

Nile as an inheritance belonging

expeditions therefore were constantly
north-east,

legitimately to Egypt.

Warlike

made

either to the south or to the

and were continued duiing the whole period of the eighteenth

dynasty.

Almost immediately after the capture of Tanis, or Avaris, from the we find Ahmes following them into the land of Canaan, where they had commenced to reorganise themselves, conquering them again, dispersing them, and taking from them some fortified towns, amongst others the town of Sharuhen, belonging in later times to the His successors followed the same road, tribe of Simeon (Jos.xix.6). and advanced with rapid steps. Before long they had subdued all Western Asia. But before relating their wars and conquests according very numerous for this period we to the testimony of the monuments think it necessary to explain briefly the position in which the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty found these Asiatic countries and nations, and to give a short sketch of the geography of these historical inscriptions.
2.

Shepherds,

THE NATIONS AROUND EGYPT.

We shall
then be able to judge what were
obstacles found

227

tlie facilities and what the by the Pharaohs in the way of their enterprises. Immediately on the north-east frontier of Egj'pt, the desert between it and Syria was occupied by Bedouin tribes, whom the hieroglyphic inscriptions always call Shasu. The most important of these, and the nearest to Egypt, were the Amalekites of the Bible, the Amalika of the Arabian historians, though this name applied equally to the Edomites, or Idumseans, and Midianites who are sometimes mentioned among the Shasu, and even generally to all the nomadic tribes of the desert. Palestine was entirely in the hands of the Canaanites, who, after the defeat of the Shepherds, were unable to form a powerful monarchy, but were in the divided state in which Joshua found them when, a little They formed an later, he conducted the Hebrews into that country. almost infinite number of petty principalities; every city had its own

king, often in rivalry with, or hostile to, his neighbours.

division

This

state of

and

local

isolation

made
it

the Canaanites of Palestine an easy

prey to every conqueror, for

hardly permitted them to unite against a

common

enemy.

But

at

the

same time

it
it

rendered a complete and

perfect conquest of the country difficult, for

was

necessarily favourable

to partial insurrections, incessantly liable to break out.

The

Syrian populations, who, to the north of the Canaanites, occupied

the provinces called in the Bible by the general

or Retennu, extending

name of Aram,
all

as far

as the River Euphrates, belonged to the confederation of the Rotennu,

beyond the

river

and embracing

Mesopotamia

(Naharaina).

What we have

already said of the Cushites

may

be ap-

The Rotennu had no well-defined territory, nor even a decided unity of race. They already possessed powerful cities, such as Nineveh and Babylon, but there were still many nomadic Their name was tribes within the ill-defined limits of the confederacy.
plied to this confederation.

taken from the city of Resen, apparently the most ancient, and originally
the most important, city of Assyria.
federation

The germ

of the

Rotennu con-

was formed by the Semitic Assyro-Clialdtean people, who were not yet welded into a compact monarchy, but were an aggregation of petty states, each having its own sovereign, and united by ties of a

nature

unknown

to us.

The

first

great Chaldtean empire, founded

many

which had exercised authority over the whole Tigro- Euphrates basin, was in fact at this moment so crippled in power
centuries earlier, and
that the last descendants of
its

early kings, reduced to the possession of

first

Babylon, and perhaps even to Erech, the

the Assyro-Chalda;ans,
federation, the

seat of their power,

were

nothing more than mere members of the Rotennu confederacy.

With

who were at its head, were joinetl in this conAramaeans on both sides of the Euphrates, whom history shows to have been always friendly to, and in strict alliance with, Assyria. The mountains to the north of Mesopotamia were inhabited by the

Q2

228

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

or Armenians, of Japlietic race.

Finally, west of the Rotennu, and the vast space contained between the left bank of the Fu[ilnates, the Taurus and the sea, that Canaanitish tribe, apparently always the strongest and most powerful, the Khilas or Hittites (a small branch of whom remained in Palestine, near Hebron), had founded a warlike and formidable emjiire, a strongly centralised monarchy. These latter were still living in Palestine in the time of Solomon, who contracted an alliance with them, and married their king's daughter. But the power of the Hittite kingdom does not seem under the eighteenth dynasty to have been sufficiently great to be dreaded by the Egyptians, and it is not until the time of the following dynasty that we see them playing a considerable part in the affairs of Western Asia. 3. The first successor of Ahmes was Amen-hotep (Peace of Amen), Under his reign the Shasu of the called Amenophis by the Greeks. desert were subdued, at any rate as far as that is possible with Bedouin, for nearly all the other kings, even the most powerful, were obliged from
in tlie valley of the Orontes,

Remenen

time to time to send out expeditions to repress their plundering propensities.

The conquest

of the land of

Canaan made great progress

during this reign, and Egyptian troops were almost constantly engaged
in reducing the little forts of the petty kings of Palestine.

The Pharaohs

did not, however, change the organisation of the country, nor did they

even suppress these small

military service.
sailors,

principalities,

but

confined themselves to

exacting an acknowledgment of supremacy, the payment of tribute and

The

inscription

on the tomb of Ahmes, chief of the

already more than once quoted, relates another

I.,

hotep

directed this time to the south.

"the

vessel of

war of Amen"I conducted," says he, king Amen-hotep when he made an expedition towards
His majesty took captive

Ethiopia to extend the frontiers of Egypt.

the chief of the mountaineers in the midst of his warriors."

Tuthmosis by the Greek copyists of Manetho) then ascended the throne. He followed up the successes of his predecessor in Ethiopia; and we may judge how much he enlarged the boundaries of the Egyptian empire by an inscription of- the second year of his reign, engraven on the rocks opposite the island of Tombos, nearly as high up the course of the Nile as that of Argo. But the greatest enterprise, and the one which rendered the name of Thothmes Having reduced the Canaanites of Palesillustrious, was to the north. tine to submission, he pushed on, and in the neighbourhood of Damascus encountered the Rotennu, who had assembled a large force to repel an
4.
I.

Thothmes

(called

enemy whose rapid increase of power they must have seen with terror. The Rotennu were conquered; but king Thothmes, who had felt their
strength, judged

that

Egyptian dominion

in

Syria

could
still

never be
further

established on a

solid basis unless

he reduced them

seeking them out on their

own

territory,

by and compelling the provinces

EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY.

229

of Mesopotamia to submit to his sceptre.

Crossing the desert, he

marched upon the Euphrates, and passed the

river at Carchemish, the Circesium of classical geography. Assyria, like Ethiopia, then felt the weight of the Egyptian arms; and, as on the Upper Nile so on the Euphrates,

Thothmes placed inscriptions to record his passage. His reign thus marks another step in advance; he inaugurated the era of great Asiatic expeditions, of distant conquests. It was also in this war of Thothmes I. in Mesopotamia that the Egyptians first became acquainted with horses, then first appearing in their sculptures, and till then probably unknown to them. The king established studs in the pastures of Lower Egypt this animal, one of the most valuable results of the conquest, prospered there, and in a short time the valley of the Nile became celebrated for its breed of horses. As well as horses, the Egyptians borrowed from
the Asiatics the use of war-chariots, so important an element in after

days

in the

armies of the Pharaohs.

I.

Thothmes

reigned twenty-one years,

and

at

his

death

left

the

throne to his son, Thothmes II.

definitely subdued,

We

We begin to and remained so for centuries. " Princes governors of the find on the rocks of Syene the names of the South," a title then given to functionaries, generally chosen from the royal family, who represented the authority of the Pharaohs beyond the cataracts. It does not seem that Thothmes II., whose reign was His successor was his brother, very short, was a warlike prince. Thothmes HI.
Section
II.

now many

find

that Ethiopia

was

Thothmes HI.

Continuation of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Greatest" Military Power of Egypt.

JReign of about half a centuty.)

(About 1600.
I.

On

his accession to the throne,

sister,

Thothmes HI. was

still

a child.

His elder
affairs

Hatasu,

who had

already played a part in public

under the former king, became the guardian of the young prince.

But her regency was really a usurpation during the seventeen years that
her government lasted.
royal power.

Hatasu assumed

all

the prerogatives of the

Her

reign was, however,

brilliant.

Egyptian history
political

knows no monarch who, when aggrandised by conquest and

influence,
nificent

has not

left

behind proofs of taste

for the arts

and mag-

Hatasu was of this number. Among the prinqueen are the two gigantic obelisks, one of which still stands among the ruins at Karnak. The inscriptions inform us that the cjueen erected these two obelisks to the memory of her father, Thothmes I. The legends on their bases mention some peculiarities worthy of notice. We see, for example, that the summit of the obelisk was originally formed by a pyramid made of gold taken
cipal

monuments. works due to

this

230
from
tlic

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

enemy.
In another jxissacjc the inscription relates that the
entire

erection of the

monument, from

tlie

lime

it

was

cut in

tlie

qnarries of Syene, only occupied seven months.

details of the efforts necessary to transport

We

may judge by these

and set up in so short a time a mass thirty metres high, and weighing 374,000 kilogrammes The temple of Deir el Bahri is also a monument of the (368 tons). The warlike exploits of the queen are the magnificence of Hatasu. Great bassubject of the representations on the walls of that edifice. reliefs, engraved with an astonishing boldness and freedom, tell us all the incidents of the conquest of the land of Pun, that is, of Yemen, or Arabia Felix, a country fertile and rich in itself, and which, being
the depot of Indian commerce, was the object of the desires of the

Egyptian monarchy, as the possession of it was necessarily an almost A copy of these interesting repreinexhaustible source of wealth. In sentations was to be seen at the Exhibition in Paris of 1867.
conclusion, Hatasu

was a

sister

worthy of the Thothmes, and oc-

cupies not the lowest place in the series of illustrious sovereigns of

who have left such mighty traces on the soil of For seventeen years, as we have seen, she assumed all the royal power; but even when her brother, Thothmes III., attained his
the eighteenth dynasty,

Egypt.

majority,

she did

not

retire.

As under Thothmes

II.,

she con-

tinued for

many

years to

take part in the government.

At length

she died, leaving

him whose power she had usurped

this

sole master of

Egypt.
2.

Of

all

the

Pharaohs of
III.
is

age, and perhaps of all Egyptian

history,

Thothmes

unquestionably the greatest.

Under him

In internal affairs, a wise foresight in administration ensured everywhere order and progress. Abroad, Egypt became by her victories the arbitress of thj whole civilised world and according to a poetical expression of the time, " She placed her frontier where it pleased herself." Her empire extended over the countries now called Abyssinia, Soudan, Nubia, Syria,

Egypt attained

to the

summit of her power.

Mesopotamia, Arabia, Kurdistan, and Armenia.

Thothmes

III.

himself relates in the annals of his reign inscribed

his first expe-

on the walls of the sanctuary of Karnak, that he made

minority.
It
is

dition for conquest in the twenty-second year of his reign, including his

undoubtedly

difficult,

and sometimes impossible, in

spite of the learned

labours of Dr. Birch, Dr. Brugsch, and M. de

Rouge,

who have

specially applied themselves to this long text, to

all the names of towns and peoples successively enumerated in the history of the wars of Thothmes. But we know sufficient to be enabled to give a satisfactory general idea. We borrow from the works of the authorities whom we have just named an analysis of the facts stated on the

recognise in our geography the exact equivalent of

THOTHMES INVADES
monument,
or the
the
usually designated

SYRIA.
of

231
III.,"

"The Annals

Thothmes
of the
lists

"Wall Catalogue
prisoners

of

Karnak," because

giving

taken and amount of booty carried off. These definite and unexaggerated accounts are an invaluable guarantee of the truth of the relation, which may be called official and statis-

number of

tical,

and which bear no traces of the

inflated style so

common

to

oriental monarchs.
3. The Rotennu refused their tribute, supposing, no doubt, that the young king, deprived of the experienced councils of his sister Hatasu, would be unable to reduce them to obedience. Moreover, a formidable insurrection, fomented and supported by them, broke out among the Canaanites of Palestine, whose petty kings united in an effort to thi'ow off the yoke of the Pharaohs, and so successfully, that only a few

strongholds, such as Gaza, were

left

in the possession of the Egyptians.

The whole

of the twenty-second year of the reign of

Thothmes was

occupied in preparations for the war, and in the siege of a few places of strength in the south of Palestine, in later times belonging to the
tribe of

Simeon j and having captured them, the king re-opened his communications by land with Gaza. This last-named place was
In the spring of his twenty-third year, on the 3rd or 4th of the

selected as the base of the operations of the following year.

month " Pachons,"* the king

his troops in person.

arrived at Gaza, and took

command

of

On

the 5th a neighbouring fortress surrendered,

and Thothmes then advanced. On the i6th he learned that the Syrian and Canaanile princes, who were confederated against him under the king of Kadesh, had commenced their march, and were concentrating their forces at Megiddo, in the plain of Esdraelon, the field where

many

a battle has decided the fate of Syria.

Rejecting the advice of

round the base of the mountains separating him from the enemy, and thus to avoid the risk of attacking them in front, Pharaoh marched straight at the confederates, and encamped, on the 19th, on the first rise of the mountains at the entrance of a difficult ravine, which the enemy had not taken the precaution to occupy with a sufficient force. He burst through, in spite of all difficulties, and on the 20th appeared with his troops on the bank of the brook Kanah, in later times the boundary between the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (Jos. xvi. 8; xvii. 9), and flowing across the plam of Esdraelon to the south of Megiddo. The Annals of Karnak contain here a short prohis officers to circle

* The 1st Pachons, properly and theoretically, should correspond with the summer solstice, whicJi really was the case in the years 1785 and 280 B.C. But as the Egyptian year consisted of 365 days without bissextile years, at the end of 400 years there would be an error of 97 days, and under Thothmes III. the 1st Pachons must have fallen about the middle of May. See note at the end of this Chapter.

232

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

by Pharaoh to
his

claninlion, addressed

Iroops on ihe eve of battle.

army for the wing rested on the Kanah, and his left was extended to the north-west of Megiddo. Tholhmcs himself commanded the centre. The enumeration of the contingents the enemy opposed to him comprises the names of all the important cities of Palestine and of the Aramcean provinces between the Anti-Lebanon and the Euphrates. At the veiy first shock of battle the Asiatics were overthrown, and fled towards Megiddo ; but the gamson of the place was terrified, and shut the gates, and the chiefs M'ere obliged to be drawn with cords up
the 2 1st Pachons, at break of day, he arranged his
;

On

attack

his right

the ramparts, to escape the pursuit of the Egyptians.

The very moderate numbers, as given in the text, of enemies killed and taken prisoners in the battle, show a spirit of truth which much enhances our interest in the narrative. Eighty-three kille<l and 340
prisoners only are reckoned for the battle of Megiddo.

The

pursuit

was nevertheless hot, for the text says, that at the time when the chiefs of the enemy gained the fortress " the king's warriors paid no attention to the booty, and let it fall." The small number of killed may be explained by the vicinity of the mountains, where the vanquished found
refuge from the pursuit of the Egyptians; in ancient times, in conse-

quence of the use of defensive armour, and of the manner

they fought, a pursuit was productive of
battle.

in

which

much more

slaughter than a

But the capture of

lists

well as long

132 horses and of 924 war-chariots, as of booty, attest the entire dispersion of the Asiatic
2,

army.
all

Some days
allied

afterwards the city of Megiddo, blockaded

and

reduced to famine, was obliged to surrender without a struggle; and as

campaign.

princes had found refuge there, its fall decided the Thothmes encountered no further serious resistance; the remainder of his march through Palestine as far as Lebanon, and through the Syrian provinces to the Euphrates, was merely a triumphal procession. The chiefs who had not been at Megiddo hastened to
the

make
tresses

their submission;

opened

their gates,

quickly taken.

and to protest their fidelity, most of the forand the few that attempted resistance were Even before the end of the campaign, Thothmes had
his

incorporated

with

own army

large

bodies

of

soldiei^s,

taken

from the enemy, who eagerly asked permission to garrisoned the three chief cities of the Rotennu on
Euphrates,
hostages.

enlist.

Having
the

this side ot

he returned to Egj-pt with thousands But in the following spring he passed the Euphrates at Carchemish at the head of his troops, and built, to s(;cure at all times the easy passage of the river, a powerful fortress, the ruins of which This time he had no need to fight ; the Rotennu beyond still exist. the Euphrates, that is, the Assp-o-Chaldseans, submitted without an
of prisoners

and

attempt

at resistance,

and Thothmes received

tribute

from their princes,

THOTHMES INVADES ASSYRIA.

amongst

233

whom
now

are

named

the king of Nineveh and the king of Asshur,

or Ellasar,

Kilch Sherghat.

4. Four years of perfect peace succeeded these victorious campaigns. But the Annals of the Temple of Kamak make the wars recommence in

the

twenty-ninth year of the reign of Tiiothmes.

Until

then,

the

Egyptian conquerors, desirous of reaching the Euphrates as quickly as possible, so as to strike at the heart of the power of the Rotennu,

had passed without turning aside to the mountain mass of the two parallel chains of Lebanon and Anti- Lebanon, containing between them the fertile plain called by the Egyptians Tsahi, and by classical geographies Ccele- Syria, or Hollow Syria. Thothmes III. penetrated into and subdued that country as well as the Phoenician coast to his sceptre. Wine (doubtless the famous golden wine of Lebanon), wheat, cattle, honey, and iron, are mentioned among the tribute that he Tunep, a city in the Anti-Lebanon, not far from Damascus, exacted. and Aradus in the southern extremity of Phcenicia, are enumerated

among The

the cities then taken.

following year, a

directed against the land of the Ratennu,

taken place.
mit.

sixth of his reign, was where some insurrections had Aradus had revolled, and was again compelled to sub-

new

expedition, the

Kadesh, a strong

city,

noted in later times in the wars- of the

oii

kings of the nmeteenth dvmasty, the ruins of which have been found
the Orontes, not far from Emessa, was taken by assault.

At

the news'

of this success, the Assyrian princes beyond the Euphrates hastened to

renew
great

their submission; the terms

inscription,

used in relating

this

event in the

power exercised by " Here the Pharaohs over the Asiatic countries they had conquered. they are bringing the sons and brothers of the chiefs to put them in the power of the king, and to be led into Egypt. If any one of the chiefs
us the nature of the

Kamak

show

should die, his majesty. will set^free his successor to occupy the place."
the

As we see, this was exactly the organisation of the subject kingdoms of Roman. Empire. Each country preserved a national gxjvernment
and king, but recognised the supremacy of Pharaoh, paid him tribute, and furnished to his army a contingent of auxiliary forces. The young princes were retained as hostages at the court of Thebes, where they received, doubtless, an entirely Egyptian education, and amongst them Pharaoh chose, and invested with power, the successors of vassal kings

who
In

died.
the. thirty-first

year of his reign,

tamia to receive personally the tribute

daean kings.

Thothmes went into Mesopoand homage of the Assyro-Challions'

On

his return

to

Egypt, he received also tribute from

several African people

skins.
taniia,

ivory,

gold dust, ebony,

and panthers'

In the following years Thothmes returned again to Mesopotook some prisoners, and set up an inscription to commemorate


234
liis

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

having "enlarged ihe frontiers of Egypt." Nineveh, Singar, and Babylon then formed parts of his empire, and in Syria, the cities beyond Jordan, Heshbon, and Rab1)alh Amnion, were for the first time forced to pay tribute. Some partial revolts in Mesopotamia and in the north of Syria were victoriously repressed. Finally, a great expedition was made into the mountainous district, north of Me.sopotamia, in which the king does not seem to have been present, against the Romcnen or Armenians, who submitted and became tributaries
during the
5.

last years

of his reign.

by the Annals, engraven on the walls of But they only comprise the events of the Asiatic wars. Whilst Thothmes with his legions pushed on to Babylon, and even to Armenia, he was also the first of the sovereigns of Egypt to create a considerable fleet on the Mediterranean, and had acquired absolute supremacy on its waters. This fleet was undoubtedly manned by Phoenicians, for the Egyptians have never at any time been skilful sailors and moreover we find from the monuments, that from the date of their submission to Thothmes III., the Phoenician cities to which no doubt the Egyptian monarch had granted very favourable conditions, preserved for many centuries towards that kingdom an unshaken fidelity, in complete contrast with the conduct of other Canaanitish people. The results of the naval campaign of Thothmes, and his conquests in the basin of the Mediterranean, are chiefly known from an inscribed monumental stele discovered at Karnak by M. Mariette. The inscription, which is in poetry, and very biblical in style, has been translated by M. de Rouge. We quote here a few verses as specimens of the grand lyrical Egyptian style. Amen, the Supreme god of Thebes,
facts related

Such are the

the sanctuary at Karnak.

is

speaking:
I

"

I given to strike do^vn Syrian princes they lie throughout the breadth of their country. Like to the Eord of Light, I made them see thy glory. Blinding their eyes with light, the earthly image of Amen.
feet

am come Under thy

to thee have

"

thee have I given to strike down Asian people hast led the proud Assyrian chieftains ; Decked in royal robes, I made them see thy glory; All in glittering arms and fighting, high in thy war-car.
I

am come to

Captive

now thou

"

I am come to thee have I given to strike down western nations Cyprus both and the Ases have heard thy name with terror. Like a strong-horned bull, I made them see thy glory Strong with piercing horns, so that none can stand before him.
;

"

to thee have I given to strike down men of the seaboard. All the land of the Maten is trembling now before thee
I
!

am come

EXTENT OF THE KINGDOM OF THOTHMES.

Fierce as the huge crocodile, I made them see thy glory Terrible Lord of the waters, none dare even approach him.

235

"

am come to thee have I given to strike down island races ; Tliose in the midst of the sea have heard the voice of thy roaring. Like an avenger of blood, I made them see thy glory, When by his victim he stands prepared to strike with his falchion.
I

*'

am come to thee have I given to strike down Lybian archers, All the isles of the Greeks submit to the force of thy spirit. Like a lion in prey, I made them see thy glory, Couched by the corpse he has made down in the rocky valley.
I

"

thee have I given to strike down the ends of the ocean. In the grasp of thy hand is the circling zone of waters ; Like the soaring eagle, I made them see thy glory. Whose far-seeing eye there is none can hope to escape from."
I

am come to

We see by

the inscription on this

Theban

stele that the fleets

of the

great Pharaoh

had conquered,

first

Cyprus and Crete, and had subjected

the southern islands of the Archipelago, a large part of the coasts of

Greece and Asia Minor, and possibly even the south of Italy. It seems we ought to infer from the same monument, that the ships of Thothmes III. were often in the Black Sea, where Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians had founded a colony at Colchis to work the mines.* It is probable that the ancestors of the German Ases, who then lived
that

tenth chapter of

by the banks of the Masotic Gulf the descendants of the Askenaz of the Genesis may be recognised in the list of northern

who paid tribute to the fleet of Thothmes. In another direction the same fleets had established the sovereignty of Pharaoh over the whole Lybian coast Monuments of the reign of Thothmes have been
people

found at Cherchel,

in Algeria,

and

it

is

far

from impossible that they

marked

the limit of Egyptian rule on the northern coast of Africa.

6. Other facts show that the supremacy of Thothmes was peaceably admitted in the whole of Cush, or Ethiopia. A cave at Ibrim, in Lower Nubia, shows us the "Governor of the South " presenting to Pharaoh

and the grain of the country. Thothmes III. Sun the Temple of Amada. At Semneh, he restored the Temple where Osortasen III. of the twelfth dynasty was
tributes of gold, silver,
built

and dedicated

to the

worshipped.
of Sai, a
Korte,

Kumneh, opposite Semneh, Mount Doshe and the Isle below that of Tombos, and also, nearer Egypt itself, Pselchis, Talmis, have preser\'ed his memory. Beyond the limits
little

of Ethiopia Proper, in the country of the negroes, frequent and victorious expeditions were made under the same king. In a bas-relief at Kai-nak
*

Her.

II. 103, 104.


236

ANCIKXT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

see 150 African prisoners defiling before Pharaoh, eacli one bearing

we
the

name

of a subject tribe.

As

far as

we can

judt^e

for

tlic

identifica-

tion of the

names of African nations is more diflicult than tliat of names tlie hst on this monument emljraces the greater in Asia and Europe part of what is now Abyssinia, and extends far to tlie west in Soudan. 7. A reign so glorious and prosperous must necessarily have left in Egypt many magnificent monuments. Those of Thothmes HI. are in

fact very

common from

the Delta to the Cataracts,

all in

admirable

stylci

tasteful in design,

and admirably finished. At Heliopolis, Memphis, Ombos, Elephantine, and, above all, at Thebes, we still find most important remains of the great buildings erected by this king.

Section III. Last Kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty Religious Troubles. {Sixteenth Centiny B.C.)

1.

Amen-hotep

(or

Amenophis)

II.

was the successor of Thothmes

III.

He

repressed an attempt of the Mesopotamians to shake off the

tion in the

Egyptian yoke, and received the submission of Nineveh. An inscripTemple of Amada, in Nubia, relates that he fought with his enemies in the land of Asshur; that seven kings fell before him, and were brought [their embalmed bodies it is to be supposed] to the banks of the
Nile,
at

where six were hung against the walls of Thebes, and the seventh Napata, the capital of Ethiopia, "that the negroes might see the
and all people upon earth, had possessed the people of the south and chastised the people

victories of the ever-living king over all lands

since he

In a grotto at Ibrim there is a statue of the king, seated an equal among the gods of the land, and also an inscription enumeraas ting the tributes paid by "the Prince Governor of the land of the South." But everything shows that the reign of Amen-hotep was short. The extracts from Manetho do not name him, and he is known only from the inscriptions. The reign of Thothmes IV., who succeeded him,

of the north."

was not much no inscription

longer.
is

The
later

lists

of

Manetho

assign

him nine

years,

and

known

than his seventh year; the latest mentions

this prince as the

conqueror of the black people.

On

another monulimits of the

ment he

is

receiving tribute from Mesopotamia.

The

empire were maintained. 2. The epoch of great wars was renewed with Amen-hotep III. A date of his thirty-sixth year is known, and a long list might be made of the Asiatic and African countries which, by policy or force, were subjected to him; his empire, says one inscription, extended from north to south, from Mesopotamia to Karo in Abyssinia. But it must be confessed that the expeditions of his troops do not seem to have always been very chivalrous, and appear sometimes to have had for theh' object

END OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY.

merely a chase
after slaves (especially in expeditions to

237
if

Soudan),

we

may judge from an

Semneh, where mention is made of Amen740 negro prisoners, of whom half were women and children. hotep HI. throughout his long reign was especially a builder. He covered the banks of the Nile with monuments remarkable for their grandeur, and for the perfection of the sculptures with which they are
inscription at

adorned.

The Temple at Djebel Barkal, the ancient Napata, capital ot Egyptian Ethiopia, is the work of this reign, as well as that of Soleb, near the third cataract. At Syene, Elephantine, Silsilis, Eileithya, in the Serapeum of Memphis, and in the Sinaitic Peninsula works of

Amen-hotep III. are found. Temple at Karnak, and built

He made

considerable additions to the

that part of the

Temple

of Luxor,

now

covered by the houses of the village of that name.

The

dedicatory

inscription which he placed on it deserves to be inserted as a specimen of the customary style and title of Egyptian .sovereigns. " He is Horus, the strong bull, who rules by the sword and destroys all barbarians ; he is king of Upper and Lower Egypt, absolute master, Son of

the

.Sun.

He

strikes

down

the chiefs of

all

lands,

no country can
their fortresses.

stand before his face.

He

marches, and

victoi-y is

gained, like Horus,

son of

Isis, like

the .Sun in heaven.

He overturns even
many

He

brings to Egypt by his valour tribute from

countries

he, the

lord of both worlds,

Son of the Sun."

But it is not by his conquests, it is not even in his real name, that this Pharaoh has attained his greatest celebrity. It is by the colossal statue he erected at Thebes, and still to be seen there, the statue which, under
the name of Memnon, took such hold of the imaginations of the Greeks and Romans in the two first centuries of the empire. They believed that they saw or rather heard Memnon, the Ethiopian, one of the defenders of Troy, each morning saluting his mother, Aurora. A learned pamphlet by Letronne, founded on the physical observations of M. de Rosiere, has completely explained this pretended prodigy, which the emperor Hadrian himself witnessed. The mysterious noise was produced when the first rays of the sun fell on the granite stone of the Colossus, covered before sunrise with dew which had penetrated into the many fissures of the stone. Similar phenomena are by no means uncommon in natural history. It had not been produced in this Colossus

before the earthquake that, about the time of Tiberius, threw

down

the

upper part of the

most exposed to it ceased when the statue was repaired by Septhe action of the dew; timus Severus and put into the state in which we now see it. 3. Amen-hotep HI. was succeeded on the throne by his son, Amenhotep IV. He, in his foreign policy, followed the example of his prestatue,
fissures

and thus uncovered the

decessors,

and some of his monuments show him standing in his chariot, and followed by his seven daughters, who fought with him, trampling

238

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

feet

under his horses'

ministration, the

the vanquished Asiatics.

But

in internal ad-

render
annals.

it

facts, which one of the most extraordinary episodes in the Pharaonic His face has nothing of the Egyptian type; and his features

reign

of this prince presents peculiar

on
as

all

the

must have

monuments bear the marks of perfect suljjected him entirely to the influence

imbecility,

such

of anyone

who

desired to control him.

tion of the Egyptian

He

v/as probably the

first

since the founda-

monarchy

to touch the religion of the country,

it

and to attempt to reform, or rather destroy,

another form of worship.
unaltered,

entirely,

and substitute

In place of the religion, up to that time

he wished to establish the worship of one single god, named Aten, which word has been compared, not without some apparently good cause, with the Semitic Adonai. A regular persecution broke out throughout the whole empire. The temples of the ancient gods were closed, and their images, as well as names, everywhere effaced from the monuments, especially the image and name of Amen, the supreme god of Thebes. The king himself changed his name, which was compounded of the name of the proscribed deity, and in place of Amen-hotep called himself Chu-en-Aten " Glory of the Solar disc." Wishing to make an end of all the traditions of his ancestors, this reforming king abandoned Thebes, and built another capital in Upper Egypt, in a place now called Tell-elAmama. The ruins of this city, abandoned after his death, have
represented by the Sun's disc, and

preserved for us

many monuments

of his reign, displaying very ad-

and where we see him presiding over the ceremonies of It seems now to be proved that the mother of his new worship. Amen-hotep IV., Queen Taia, a woman more than usually strongminded, and who was all-powerful with her son, was the leader in This queen was not an Egyptian ; the this religious movement. monuments represented her with light hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks,
vanced
art,

like the

women of northern climates. An inscription, preserved at the Cairo Museum, mentions her father and mother by names which are not Egyptian, and not even belonging to any foreign royal family.
She was then the
child of one of those families of foreigners

then lived in the Delta, and was married for her beauty by

who Amen-

hotep HI. In dedicating altars to a god whom Egj'pt had not before known, Chu-en-Aten was merely following the traditions of the He did for Aten or Adonai foreign race whose blood ran in his veins. what the Shepherds had done for Sutekh. He gave supremacy to a and this may perhaps explain why, in the bas-reliefs of foreign faction Tell-el-Amama, we find this king surrounded by oflicers whose physiognomy is as foreign and as little like the Egyptians as his own. Had not the Hebrews, whose number had enormously increased during the ten generations of their residence in Egypt, some connection
;

RELIGIOUS TROUBLES IN EGYPT.

with
this

239

strange attempt, and the imperfect

?

hotep IV.

We

have perhaps a right to suppose that they had.

monotheism of AmenThere

are curious resemblances between the external forms of Israelitish wor-

ship in the desert, and those revealed by the

Amarna.

Some

of the sacred furniture, such as the

monuments of Tell-el" Tabic of Shew-

bread," described in the book of Exodus as belonging to the Tabernacle, is seen in the representations of the worship of Aten, but not at

any other period.

But what

is

mencement

of the persecution of the

the termination of the religious

more significant is, that the comHebrews coincides exactly with troubles excited by the attempts of the
still

son of Taia at reform, or rather absolute revolution in religious worship.

second chapter of our Manual, that during and previous to the mission of Moses, the monotheism of the descendants of Jacob had become much corrupted. In particular it was tainted with materialism. Surrounded Ijy idolaters, the Hebrews with difficulty only retained the worship of Jehovah, even under a visible and material form. And coiTupted in this way, their religion was not much better than that which Amcn-hotep attempted to
in the

We

have already seen,

in

their sojourn

Egjqjt,

establish.

4. After the death of this king,

Egypt remained disorganised and a

prey to factions.
period
is full

The

history of the empire of the Pharaohs for this

of obscurities, which further discoveries alone can clear up.

many personages, some of them great officers at the court Amen-hotep Chu-en-Aten, and husbands of his daughters, successively seized on the supreme power, and followed each other at very short intervals. The most important, the one whose authority seems
find that

We
of

to have been

best assured,

is

one Amen-tu-t-ankh, another son of

whose mutilated monuments are found in Ethiopia, at Thebes, and at Memphis, who was therefore in possession of all Egypt, except perhaps the Delta. He made campaigns in Asia, and
III.,

Amen-hotep

received an ambassador from Assyria.

we

lists of Manetho, mention of the last son of Amen-hotep III., Har-em-Hebi, the Horus of Manetho, who in the end was recognised as the only legitimate king of this period. The commencement of his reign was

In the midst of these disorders, apparent even in the

find

brilliant.

An

inscription, dated in his

second year,

is at Silsilis

attached

to a representation of his triumplial return from a victorious

campaign

on the Upper Nile.

is

One

of the Egyptian chiefs

is

reproaching the

captives with having refused to hear those

who

told tliem

"the

lion

approaching the land of Ethiopia."

In another place, the inscription

returns,

says to the king,

" The gracious god

.
.
.

borne by the chiefs of

is

all

the land

the king, director of the worlds,

.

favoured by the

Sun, Son of the Sun

The

king's

name

Cush ; he has chastised

it

as he

had promised

his father,

known in the land of Amen." After

240
this

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

second year, history
reigneil,
is

quite silent, although

Har-em-Hebi
lists,

still

nominally

and, according to the statements of later

for

thirty-six or thirty-seven years.

\Ve

know
all

only of a few

monuments

erected by this prince.

We

find, also, traces

of violent reactions against

the reforms of Amen-hotep IV., and

that belonged to him.

The

names of
city,

the pretenders, his successors, are everywlicre defaced; and

the buildings erected by them are thrown to the ground, and the

new
civil

Tell-el-Amarna, purposely and systematically destroyed.

Every-

thing shows us a time of trouble, of continual revolution, and of

discord.

doubt part of the disturbances, of which the monuments bear traces, must have been contemporary with Har-em-Hcbi, and have lasted during the whole of his official reign. In that period, we repeat, there are obscurities still impenetrable in the present state of knowledge, and which new discoveries alone can dissipate. In the
midst of these obscurities, in the midst of the troubles

No

we have menHar-em-

tioned, the eighteenth dynasty terminates with the reign of

Hebi, having occupied the throne of Egypt

the glory and

for

241 years, and carried

power of Egypt

to

its

highest point.

Section IV. Commencement oe the Nineteenth Dynasty

Seti l.{Fifteenlh Century B.C.)
r.

Under
its

the nineteenth dynasty, which acquired the throne after

the death of Har-em-Hebi, the fortune of Egypt maintained to

extent

some

though the reigns of some warlike kings throw a bright gleam on this epoch, the shade of approaching trouble already darkens the horizon. Egypt, under the eighteenth dynasty, had been a standing menace to all nations of the earth; she was henceforward doomed to be herself constantly endeavouring to ward off
ascendancy
;

but,

threatened danger.
this series was Ramses I.; he seems to grandson on the mother's side of Har-em-Hebi, and possibly have been son of one of the pretenders who disputed the throne at the close of the eighteenth dynasty, so that he is sometimes counted as the last king of that dynasty. We have but a small nuzirber of monuments of his In the midst of the disorders which for nearly half a century reign. followed the death of Amen-hotep III., the Asiatic dominions of the Egyptian monarchy were much disturbed. Revolts occurred in most

The king who commenced

of the provinces

the petty local princes almost entirely ceased to pay

tribute: the conquests of

Thothmes

III.

needed
;

in great part to

recommenced.
in that country

Syria especially was threatened

be Egyptian supremacy

was muclr more precarious than

in the

more

distant

Mesopotamia.

On

the banks of the Orontes, in the whole of that vast

RAMSES
district

I.

AND

SETI.

241

comprised between the left bank of the Euphmtes, the Taurus, and the sea, a region hitlierto untrodden by the Egyptian conquerors, the country of the Khitas, or Hittites, of Canaanitish race, who seem never to have given offence to the Thothmes or Amen-hoteps, liad suddenly become very powerful, had taken the lead of other neighbouring nations, had drawn round them other Canaanitish tribes, and even
extended their influence over the south of Asia Minor.
into one single monarchy, possessing a

Formed now
all

numerous and formidable army,

the Khitas, descendants of the Shepherds, openly aspired to rule

Syria,

Ahmes, by crushing ' Their pretensions were the more the foreign doming Egypt. dangerous because tne Canaanites of Palestine were induced by community of race to prefer them to the Egyptians as rulers. Ramses I. made one campaign against the Khitas on their own territory and an inscription at Karnak states that he was the first of The the Pharaohs who sought them out in the valley of the Orontes. war was concluded by a treaty between Ramses and Seplul, king ot Very few passages of arms marked the reign of this the Hittites. Pharaoh, which was very short. His successor was Seti I., the Sethos of Greek tradition. 2. Although an inscription in the palace of Medinet Abu at Thebes describes Seti as the .son of Ramses I., he seems to have In the Temple of Abydos, been only his adopted son, and son-in-law. recently uncovered by M. Mariette, it is said of his son, Ramses II., that he was "King in the womb of his mother before he was born";
and
to take their revenge for the exploits of
;

Ramses, even before his birth. From such strange and unusual expressions, it seems certain that Seti I. was a general of repute a soldier of fortune stranger by birth to the royal family, who, by marriage with the heiress to the crown, seated himself on the throne ; whilst, from the legitimist point of view, he was regarded as a regent only, by whom the throne was preserved for his son Ramses, in whose veins, through his mother, ran the blood of the ancient kings of the eighteenth dynasty. Not only was Seti I. a stranger to the royal family, but he seems not even to have been of pure Egyptian race. Plis features, and those of his son Ramses, are too handsome, and of a regularity too classical, for the pure blood of Mizraim ; they denote an origin drawn from another people. But what is more extraordinary still is, that some indications, to which it is difticult to refuse belief, show that the strange race from which descended Seti, and, consequently, all the kings of the nineteenth dynasty, was that of the Shepherds, who still remained as colonists in the Delta. Thus only can we explain the surprising conclusion which results from an inscription discovered by M. Mariette at Tanis. This inscription is relative to the re-establishment by Ramses II. of the worship
also that Seti governed merely in the stead of his son


242

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

national deity of
I.

of Sutekh, tlie

tlie

Hyksos,
title

in llicir ancient capital.

Now

the son of Seti

gives to

King

Set-aa-pehti, the founder of the

regulai-

dynasty of the Shepherds, the

of "Father," or

"An-

cestor," and dates an era from the reign of this prince,

surnamed Merenphtah, was one of the greatest and most He was also distinguished as a builder. He built the whole of the great Temple of Osiris at Abydos, more than 560 feet long, one of the wonders of Egypt brought to light by recent excavations. At Thebes he founded a magnificent palace, that of Kurnah, so called from a modern village partly built in the The subterranean tomb of the same king, very court of that edifice. built on so bold a plan that we can hardly imagine how an architect could have conceived it, must be classed among the most remarkable works of Pharaonic art. But the most astonishing of the monumental remains of .Seti is the famous " Hall of Columns " in the immense palace of Karnak at Thebes, where so many successive generations have laboured. Travellers of our days have exhausted the language of admiration in their descriptions of this marvellous building, of which we shall have occasion to speak in a future chapter. The exploits of Seti himself are represented on the sculptured walls All these sculptures have inscriptions. of this" gigantic hall. One represents Seti. attacking the Arabs of the desert, the Shasu, whom we already know others show the Remenen, or Armenians, whom the
3.

Seti

I.,

warlike of the sovereigns of F^gypt.

king conquered, with their neighbours, the Assyrians, cutting down the The Assyrians trees in their forests, as if to open a passage for him. were cut to pieces, and submitted to pay tribute. Great battles were fought with the Khitas of the north of Syria, and at last the king
returned to Egypt with numerous captives.

He was received with ceremony at the frontier by the grandees of the empire, and great afterwards he presented his Asiatic prisoners to the god Amen, at Thebes. The whole of this period of wars the complete " .Setiad " is depicted in an immense series of sculptures on a most magnificent

scale.

an

Thus the most perfect work of art of this reign is at the same time Ifistorical monument of the highest importance, contributing largely
knowledge of Egyptian
history.

to our

By comparing

the facts re-

corded on these sculptures, and in their inscriptions, with the records of inscriptions found elsewhere, we anive at a result which, unfortunately,

we

can only present

in

a hasty sketch,

4, Before carrying his arms into Syria, Seti was previously compelled, in the first year of his reign, to ensure the tranquillity of the frontier of

on the side of the Isthmus of Suez, by chastising the depredations had for some time been exceedingly annoying, and who had the audacity even to attack ZaI,

Egypt

itself,

Shasu, or

Bedouins, whose

WAR WITH THE

HITTITES.
Lower Egypt,

243
the

the chief town of the fourteenth nome, or province of

Heliopolis of the Greeks, near the Bitter Lakes.' Pharaoh repulsed them with ease, and drove them back into the desert; and pursuing them there, compelled the tribes to submit. In the following year, Seti He seems to repaired in person to Syria al the head of a large army. have inet with no resistance in Palestine, where all the petty Canaanitish princes hastened to pay their tribute and to furnish contingents of troops. Desirous of first confronting the most menacing danger, instead of passing on, like his predecessors, to the Euphrates, he marched
against the Khitas, and attacked the southern frontier of their country.

The war

at this point

was long and desperate; and

far

it

seems that the

territory.

Egyptians were unable to penetrate

into

the enemy's

However,

Seti at length carried

by

assault the chief fortress of the

country of the Khitas, Kadesh, the key to the whole valley of the Orontcs ; it was not occupied by the Hittites, but by another tribe of
the nation of the same
in Palestine.

Canaanitish race, vassals of the Hittite king, the Amorites, related to name whom the Hebrews at a later date found
After this success a treaty of peace was
Hittites,

made between

Seti

and Mautnur, king of the

their

preserved

possessions

entire.

by which the latter nation Even Kadesh was restored to him

them

but they engaged never again to attack the Egyptian provinces

or foment rebellion against the authority of Pharaoh, and to leave

at liberty to attack

and reduce

to subjection the revolted nations

who

had obeyed
subjects.

his predecessors,

and

whom

he had always regarded as

Secure in this quarter, Seti turned back to attack the Rotennu, who no longer acknowledged Egyptian supremacy, and had discontinued paying their tribute. Those between Lebanon and the Euphrates, that The Rotennu beyond the is the Aramaeans, were easily subdued. Euphrates gave more trouble to the Egyptian conqueror ; but some great battles brought about the complete submission of Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Chaldsea. Seti admitted to an interview the chiefs of Nineveh, Babylon, and Singar. A last campaign in the mountains oi Armenia, re-established the supremacy of Pharaoh in that country. The whole of the conquests of Thothmes HI. were recovered, and the Asiatic empire of Egypt was completely reconstructed. On the other hand, Seti I. does not seem to have made any attempt to recover the maritime conquests of Thothmes. We have no reason to suppose tliat he had any considerable fleet on the Mediterranean, or that he endeavoured to regain supremacy over the islands that had become inde-

pendent

in the troublous times at the close of the eighteenth dynasty.

It is true that

measure

itself

a formidable power had grown up, soon to be able to with Egypt the navy of the Pelasgi, which it seems did

not exist in the days of

Thothmes

III.

R 2

244
5.

ANCIENT HISTORY
In the south, religious and
liy

OP^

TIIK EAST.

politiciil

troubles had never sliaken the

Scti

peaceable possession of Ethiojiia

the Pharaohs.
in

had therefore

no need

to

undertake any serious exjiedition

that quarter.
iiis

He

con-

fined himself to sending out from time to time, like

predecessors, a

few expeditions, more for slave hunting than war, against the semibarbarous populations bordering on Ethiopia, particularly against the negroes. In the sculptures of a temple near ihe frontiers of Nubia, at

a place

now

called Radesieh, this

king

is

negro prisoners by the hair

represented holding a group of

representation intended to express that

the tribes were entirely at his mercy.

On
the

the north-west frontier of Egypt, Scti repulsed the incursions of

Lybians, and

country.

despatched some successful expeditions into their Finally, he reconstructed the Egyptian fleet on the Red Sea

which cruised on the shores of the Pun, or Yemen, where he re-asserted the supremacy of the Pharaohs, first established by Hatasu. 6. There is nothing to show that Seti I. had occasion to renew his
great expeditions into Asia.

On

the contrary, everything indicates that,

up
his
life

to

the time of his death, the supremacy he had re-established in

Syria and Mesopotamia remained undisputed.

The

terror inspired

by

name and by
to

the superiority of his arms no doubt sufficed during his

in submission.

keep the people

The Khitas faithfully obsei"ved the treaty, and, while silently preparing for new and more formidable attacks on the Egyptian power, scrupulously
respected for the time the provinces subject to Egypt.

We

have no

monument
fifty years.

of the reign of Seti subsequent to his thirtieth year, although,

lists

according to the
It

of Manetho, he appears to have reigned

more than

seems, therefore, that no great events occurred during

the latter part of his reign, and that Egypt must have enjoyed that happy repose during which people have no history. Unless, however, and this perhaps is most probable, we ought to correct the lists of Manetho and write thirty years only,instead of fifty,for the reign of Seti I. In any case, it is certain that campaigns into Asia and the building of sumptuous edifices were not the only occupations of the Egyptian monarchy under this reign. Knowing that the gold mines in the desert south of Egypt were difficult of access, and that it was almost impossible
to sustain
Seti
I.

life

there because of the extreme dryness of the country,

ordered, in the 9th year of his reign, an Artesian well to be

skill of the Egypabundance was obtained. Encouraged by this success, the king resolved to build a fortress and a temple where he himself often went to adore his gods. Care had been taken to place him among the divinities of the place. Such is the

constructed (a most important fact as bearing on the

tian engineers of the period),

whence

watei" in

account given in a long inscription.

" But however important may have been the creation of a habitable


SESOSTRIS.
place in the midst of the desert, a
to us by a
still

245
fact
is

more important

revealed

Hall of Karnak, representing Seti returning from his conquests and re-entering Egypt, shows us the towns or castles east of the Delta, or Isthmus of Suez, that he passed on his route. Now one of ihese, Zal (Heroopolis), is represented on a canal containing crocodiles, and opening into a great mass of water, probably a lake. Dr. Brugsch, the highest authority on Pharaonic geography, in describing this curious representation declares that, in his opinion, this is no other than the famous canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, passing the lake still called
of another kind.
bas-relief in the

monument

The

Columns

at

the Crocodile

Lake (Thnsah).

He

reminds

us,

that in later times the

Greek tradition often confused the two reigns of Seti and of his son; and we know that Sesostris has passed for the original author of tliat magnificent enterprise, taken up again and completed in later times by the Greek kings of Egypt, and, though destroyed by the barljarism of another age, once more successfully carried out by the genius and indomitable perseverance of a Frenchman." RoBioti.

Section V.
{Close of the Fifteenth

Ramses H.

(Sesostris).
Fourteenth Century B.C.).

andfirst half of the

1. Ramses II., sumamed Meriamen, beloved of Amen, had been, as we have said, associated on the throne with his father from his birth, and even, we may say, before his birth. " Such thou hast been," say the gods to him in an inscription, " from thy birth; no monument was

erected without thee, and no order

was executed without thy consent." Nevertheles he counted the years of his reign only from the death of Seti and from the time when he became sole master, at the age of about
His reign was one of the longest
for sixty-seven years.
is

eighteen or twenty.

in the annals of

Egypt

he governed alone Among the Pharaohs he

;

the builder J)ar excellence.

It is

almost

impossible to find in Egypt a ruin, or an ancient mound, without reading his name.
in

The two magnificent subterranean Temples at Ip^amboul, Nubia, the Ramesseum of Thebes, a large part of the temples of Karnak and Lu.xor, the small temple at Abydos, are all his works he
;

where a magnificent Colossus bears his likeness, in the Fayum, and at Tanis. Ramses II. was enal)led to complete these works, owing to the great length of his reign and to his wars, vvliich gave him the large number of prisoners whom, according to Egyptian usage, he employed on these edifices. To these causes we may add the presence of numerous tribes of foreign races on the
built also large edifices at ]\Iemphis,
;

246

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

wliom the
fertility

brinks of the Nile,

of tlie

soil,

and

tlie

policy of former

These Egypt had extended to them by the workmen whom they furnished for the works on the temples, the construction of cities and the cleansing of canals. In this way we find, in the Bible story under this same Ramses II., the Israelites employed in the east of the Delta in the construction of two cities, one called after the king Ramses (Ex. i. 2). 2. Ramses II. was celebrated in Europe long before our era, long before the monuments of Egypt were understood by us. Herodotus had called him Sesostris, and the name had become famous; but the Greek writer did not invent it. Ramses had received during his life, and for some reason we are ignorant of, the popular surname of Sestesu, or 'Sesu, and with the addition of the word Ra (the Sun), a common addition to the names of Egyptian kings, this must have produced a
foreigners repaid the hospitality

kings, had attracted from the jilains of Asia into the Delta.

sound, rendered agreeable in later times to Grecian ears, as Sesostris.

Round

these

popular surnames a legend gradually fonned in the

course of ages, attributing to one person all the exploits of the con-

querors and warlike princes of Egypt, both of Thothmes and Seti as

well as of the various Ramses, and magnifying these exploits by extend-

ing them to every

known

country, as legends always do.

stories, cuiTent

It is these

legendary traditions, these fabulous

among

the populace,

that the Greeks, the intelligent and coiTCct Herodotus as well as the

mere compiler Diodorus

Egypt,

Siculus, greedily received from their guides in being incapable of referring directly to the true sources of These are the stories from which from age to age the history history.

was written ; a history as real and true up to the time of Champollion's discovery, as would be one of Charlemagne drawn from the Ballads of the middle age.
of Egypt
Sesostris, according to

the legends collected and repeated by these

Greeks, was prepared in an extraordinary

the part of a conqueror.

way by

his education to play

had gathered round him all the boys born on the same day, and made him as well as his companions serve an apprenticeship to war, by violent exercise, by long journeys, and by constant conflicts with the wild animals and barhis infancy his father

From

barous inhabitants of the desert.

coiintry

After his father's death, Sesostris

aspired to other exploits and greater conquests.

Ethiopia was the

first

imposed on it a tribute of gold, ebony, and He next equipped a fleet of 400 long ships on the elephants' tusks. Arabian Gulf, the first of their kind the Egyptians had seen. Whilst this fleet subjugated the banks of the Red Sea, Sesostris at the head of He subdued Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, his army invaded Asia. and India, and penetrated even to the Ganges. Media, Persia, Bactria, Returning then towards the north, he subjugated the Scythian tribes as he conquered.

He

RAMSES

11.

247

far as Tanais, and established in the Isthmus, separating the Black Sea from the Caspian, a colony, the origin of the state of Colchis; passed into Asia Minor, where he left monuments of his victories;* lastly, crossing the Bosphorus, he advanced into Thrace, where scarcity of food, the rigor of the climate, and the difficulties of passage put an end to

his triumphs.

At the end of nine years Sesostris returned to his kingdom, followed by a host of captives, loaded with booty and covered
with glory.

Such

is

the legend.

The

reader will have already perceived that

it

attributes to Sesostris the conquest of countries already long subject to

Egypt, such as Ethiopia; and the credit of deeds by preceding sovereigns, such as the creation of a navy and the reduction of the shores of the Red Sea; but above all it makes this prince march triumphantly
over countries where Egyptian armies were never at any time seen,
such as India, Persia, and generally the Arian countries beyond the This is an Tigris, as well as the provinces to the north of Armenia.

poems that always enhance the Charlemagne and magnify his victories, making him the conqueror of Jerusalem and the deliverer of the Holy Sepulchre.
exact parallel to those middle age
exploits of

If

we now

investigate the real facts, from the testimony of the official

monuments of Ramses

Sesostris, though they are very emphatic in their and often suspected of exaggeration, we see the whole fabric language Ramses II. was no doubt of these prodigious conquests vanish away.

a warlike prince,

who

passed the greater part of his reign in fighting,

but he was not a conqueror.

He

did not add one single province to

Egypt; in the south, north, and west, he was always compelled to stand on the defensive, and exposed every instant to the revolts of the people whom the Thothmes and Amen-hoteps had subdued. The only glory of his reign was to have maintained, at the expense of enormous efforts, Far from having penetrated to the banks the integrity of the empire. of the Ganges, he never carried his arms in Asia further than Thothmes III. and Seti, and nearly all his campaigns were confined to Northern Syria. In a word, the great renown of Sesostris is entirely fabulous ; it is one of the baseless tales of glory accepted so readily by

106. One of these monuments attributed by the legend and which Herodotus says that he saw, still remains at Ninfi, near Smyrna, and the author of this Manual having seen it, can confidently pronounce that it has no appearance of a work of Egyptian

Her.

ii.

to Sesostris,

art.

Consult a dissertation by M.
1867.

Perrot in

the

Rrviic Arcluvloifiqiie,

[See also description and plate in Rawlinson and Wilkinson's flcrodotus, vol.
ii.,

p. 149.

2nd

ed.]

24S

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

the Greeks, ami wliieh disappear Ijcfore criticism aiid llie progress ot knowledge as to the positive facts of history. 3. Let us see now what the reign of Ramses II. really was, according to the monuments of the banks of the Nile. A change of reign is always a critical time for vast empires established only by concjuest, and extending over an immense extent of territory. The change is generally followed by the revolt of the less completely subjugated and more distant provinces of those that have suffered most from oppression, and think themselves best able to procure their freedom by force of arms. The accession of Ramses, on the death of his father Seti, passed off quietly in Asia. The new prince was recognised peaceably as far as Mesopotamia, and an inscription of the second year of his reign, says that his orders were then obeyed there with fidelity. "But affaii-s were not in the same state on the banks of the Upper Nile.

The
all

south of Ethiopia revolted, and witli this part of the Ethiopians

the negro tribes

who had been

sul)ject to the sceptre of the

Pharaohs.

It

required a long, bloody, and furious war to reduce things to their

former order and subdue the rebels. The walls of the subterranean temples of Ipsamboul and Beit Walli, in Nubia, are covered with great
sculptured and painted tablets, representing the victories gained by his

Ethiopian viceroys over his revolted subjects on the Upper Nile.

On

some of them Ramses is personally represented, and, in fact, to encourage his axmy he must have been present with it in one campaign in
the south of Ethiopia in the second or third year of his reign.
4. The embarrassment caused by Upper Nile drew for some years the

this

revolt of the people of the

attention of the government

and

the military forces of

Egypt

to the south, andj therefore,

appeared to the
first

Khitas, or Hittites,
affairs of

who

henceforth were to play the

part in the

Western Asia,
to

to afford a favourable occasion for

recommencing
first

war and provoking

reduced

a general insurrection of those Asiatic provinces

obedience

by

Seti.

Chaldsea, and Aramaean Syria all Egyptian garrisons. The Khitas put themselves at the head of the movement, and a numerous and formidable confederation gathered round them, composed

Armenia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, revolted at once, and drove out the

not only of the revolted nations, but also of the greater part of the

Asia Minor^ who dreaded the growth of the Pharaonic power, and had already felt the weight of its arms by sea, under Thothmes III. A great army was assembled in Northern Syria, menacing both Palestine, where already partial revolts had broken out among the petty Canaanitish princes governing different cities, and also the frontier of Egypt The monuments of the reign of Ramses have preserved the itself. names of the twelve states whose united troops formed this army. They were first the Khitas, or Hittites; the kingdom of Kadesh, or of the
tribes of

RAMSES
northern
present

II.

249
Perasa
;

Amorites;
Djerash),
all

the

Gergesenes of
the
race of

(inhabitants

ot

the

Phanicians of Aradus, the only ones of their nation unfaithful to the Egyptian monarch, to whom those of Byblos and Sidon always remained at; tached the Aramroan people were represented by the States of Helbon (Aleppo); of Carchemish, where Thothmes III. had built his fortress to gtiard the passage of the Euphrates; of Katti (also mentioned in
of

Canaan

the

the Bible, but whose precise position

Jos. xix. 43),

is

unknown); of Aloun (Elon,

a town afterwards belonging to the tribe of

Syria
;

Dan; of

Rotennu on this side the Euphrates; and of Gazauatan, a place the site of which is unknown. Alesopotamia, mentioned here as always by the name of Naharaina, had furnished very numerous contingents. Finally, the nations of Asia Minor, who had sent soldiers to the army commanded by ]\Iautnur, king of the Hittites, were the Mysians, the Lycians, the Pisidians, the Dardanians of Troy, and last, a people called Mushanet in the Egyptian texts, who may, perhaps, be identified
in Coele

Gadara,

of Anaugas, chief city of the

with the Mosynoeci of classical geography.* All this occurred towards the end of the fourth year of the reign

ol

Ramses.

The young king

could not resign himself to the loss of the

greater part of his empire, and of its most valual)le provinces. In the spring of the following year, having assembled his whole military force,

and gathered round him the experienced captains who had taken part in his father's wars, he commenced a campaign to recover the Asiatic possessions of his predecessors, and, above all, to humble the pride of the Khitas, who were the life and soul of the Asiatic insurrection. The army of Ramses traversed first the land of Canaan. There is no inscription recording the first part of the campaign; but it is probable that Pharaoh had to fight more than once, to rejiress several revolts in
this country, for centuries subject to the sovereigns of Egypt, as he engraved triumphal steles on the rocks; these still remain at Adloun, near Tyre, and at the passage of the Nahr El Kelb (Dog River), near Beyrut. But he arrived in the neighbourhood of Kadesh and the valley

of the Orontes without meeting the grand

there that the personal exploit of

commemorated on
to the

the

army of his enemies. It was Ramses occurred which is constantly monuments, where he was praised to satiety up

end of his reign, and by the sculptures on the walls of all the temples built by this prince an exploit proving the pei'sonal courage of the king rather than his possession of real military talent. This

episode in the history of the Sesostris of the Greeks was

subject of an epic

made

the

poem, about

as long as one

book of the

Iliad,

com-

posed by a scribe named Pentaour.

Its text,

always unfortunately

Her.

iii.

94;

vii.

78.

250

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

mutilated,
is

much

found

in

thi-ee places

engraven

at length
tlie

on the

wall of the
pajiyrus in
translated

Ramesseum
the
British

at

Thebes and on that of

in

Icmple of

Ipsamboul, and also written

the cursive style, called Hieratic, in a

This valuable text was in 1856 by M. de Rouge. We think it well to give here an analysis, with some quotations, that our readers may have some idea of an Egyptian ]ioem, an epic written by one of the best literary men of the period, and only two years after the event it records. 5. It was in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses, Pharaoh, seeking his enemies, who retired slowly before him to make head only on their own territory, had penetrated as far as Ccele Syria, not far from Kadesh, and was encamped under the fortress of Shebetun (a place still unknown), when two Bedouins (Shasu) presented themselves before him. They said they were sent by their chiefs to join the Egyptian army, and to bring certain intelligence as to the movements of the Khitas, who had compelled the tribe to march with them. They stated that the enemy, alarmed, had retreated towards Aleppo, where they were concentrating. But this was treachery, false intelligence contrived by the chiefs of the Khitas to cause Pharaoh to fall into a trap. They, with their numerous allies, had placed themselves in ambuscade a little to the north-east of Kadesh. Deceived by the reports of these pretended fugitives, Ramses marched on without suspicion, accompanied only by his body guard, whilst the main portion of his army proceeded by the road on Aleppo, hoping to find the enemy there, when two men, who had been seized by the king's servants, were led into his presence. Compelled by blows to speak, they confessed that, far from retreating, the Khitas, confident in the numbers of their soldiers and allies, among whom were the people of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, were close at hand, hoping to surprise the king. The Egyptian generals, assembled by Ramses, were much disconcerted at having allowed themselves to be deceived by the first report, and thus having led the king into so dangerous a position. Messengers were sent in all haste to recall the army to the place where the enemy was posted. But before the arrival of the troops the whole of the Khita forces sallied forth from their ambuscade, and fell on the small body which accompanied Ramses, hoping to make a
prisoner of Pharaoh.

Museum.

With

the rash courage of youth, Ramses,

who was

then only twentyofficers,

three years old, rejected with scorn the prudent councils of his

and without waiting for the main body of his army, commenced the fight. "The footmen and horsemen then," says the poet, "recoiled before the enemy, who were Then his masters of Kadesh, on the left bank of the Orontes. majesty, in the pride of his strength, rising up like the god Month, put
to retire to the rear,
. .
.

who wished him

THE POEM OF PENTAOUR.

.

251

on his fighting dress, completely armed, he looked like Baal in the hour of his might. Urging on his chariot, he pushed into the army of the vile Khitas he was alone, no one was with him. ...He
.

was surrounded by 2, 500 chariots, and the swiftest of the warriors of the vile Khitas, and of the numerous nations who accompanied them, threw themselves in his way. Each chariot bore three men, and the king had with him neither princes nor generals nor his captains of archers or of chariots. " In the presence of such a danger the king was for an instant troubled. He invoked Amen, the great god of Thebes, asking help, and recalling the pomp with which he had surrounded his worship and the magnificent temples he had built to him, just as Homer's heroes reminded Zeus of all the hecatombs they had slain in his honour. "My archers and horsemen have abandoned me! There is none of What, then, is the intention of my father. them to fight by my side Amen? Did I not march at thy word?* Has not tliy mouth
.
.

guided
not
I

my

expeditions, and have not thy councils directed

me?

Have
I filled

celebrated magnificent feasts in thy honour, and have not

... I have slain for thee 30,000 bulls. temples of blocks of stone, and have erected I set up the obelisks of Elephantine for thee everlasting trees.
thy temple M-ith
I

my

booty?

...

have

built for thee

Thee I invoke, O my by me were the eternal stones set up.+ Father I am in the midst of a host of strangers, and no man is with me. My archers and horsemen have abandoned me when I cried to But I prefer them, none of them has heard when I called for help.
.
.

thousands of millions of archers, to millions of horsemen, to myriads of young heroes all assembled together. The designs of man
to

Amen

are nothing.

Amen
;

overrules them."

has heard the prayer of Ramses, he raises his sinking courage, gives him strength, and encourages him with these words: "I am near thee, I am thy father, the Sun, my -hand is with I will be more to thee than millions of men assembled together. thee.
I

Here the deity Homeric combats

inter\'enes in the

midst of the

strife, just

as in the

Amen

am

the

Lord of

hosts,

who

loves courage

firm,

and
tlie

my

heart has rejoiced.

My

will shall

have found thy heart I be accomplished.

will be to

them

am

in

The 2,500 chariots, like Baal in his might. midst of them, shall be crushed before thy horses.

when

Their

hearts shall sink in their bosoms, and their limbs shall be weak.
shall

They

be able to shoot no more arrows, and shall have no strength to

I will

hold the spear.

springs in
;

make them

leap into the water, as the crocodile

kill

they shall be thrown one on another, and

each other

before thee."

* Doubtless

t Amongst

on the faith of an oracle. others the one now at Paris, in the Place de la Concorde.

252

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

liy

Strengthened and encouraged

the divine word,

at

llie

king rushed
the

on

tJie

Khitas,

who

hailed, astonished
tlie

his Ixiklness.

He made

bravest of their warriors bite

and opened for himself a bloodstained passage over their corpses. But the enemy, thougli terrified for a moment, regained courage, seeing that the Egyptian army did not come uji at tlie shouts of the king. Ramses was again surrounded by " When my the war-chariots of the bravest chiefs of the Hittite army.
dust,

armour-bearer saw that

was surrounded by such a number of chariots,

him, and his terror extended
'

he was

afraid, his heart failed

itself to all

his limbs.

He

said to his majesty,

My

good master, generous king,

sole protector of

Egypt

in the
let

day of

battle,

we

of the enemy, stay and

us save the breath of our

are alone in the midst "*

lives.'

But the king did not listen to these timid counsels, the greatness of his danger raised his courage trusting in the protection of Amen, he urged on his car. Six times he crossed the ranks of the enemy. Six times he struck down all who opposed his passage. He then rejoined his guards, and in severe terms reproached the generals and soldiers who had abandoned him. He recalled to them all the favours which he had bestowed upon them all the good he had conferred upon Egypt from the height of his throne. " Every day," said he, "I sit in judgment on every complaint made to me." Addressing particularly the officers charged with the govemment of the province of Syria and with watching the frontiers, he bitterly reproached them with their
; ;

negligence in not getting information as to the movements of the enemy.

Lastly, he reproached

the courage he himself had shown.

it with have displayed my valour, and neither footmen nor horsemen went -with me. The whole world has

them

all

with their cowardice, contrasting

"

made way
The The

before the strength of

my

arm;

was

alone, no one with me,

.
.

neither princes, nor generals, nor chiefs of archers, nor of cavalry.

warriors have stopped

they have retreated on seeing

my

exploits,

their myriads
shafts

have taken launched by

flight,

and

their feet

can no more be stopped.

my hand

dispersed their warriors as soon as

they came near me."

The Egyptian
his hand.

soldiers praised the valour of their king

by unanimous

acclamations, and contemplated with astonishment the victims slain by

generals,

But Ramses only replied by reproaches to the praises of his and contrasted with their inconsiderate and pusillanimous conduct the constancy of the two faithful animals who had borne him out of danger; he ordered them to be covered with honours, and like Alexander who, after the defeat of Porus, founded a city and called it
poet, in accordance with the emphatic form very the texts of that language, changes the person, and now puts the words into the king's mouth.
*

The Egyptian
in

common

THE POEM OF PENTAOUR.

Bucephalus, after
battle,
'
'

253

tlie horse that had carried him through the wliole These and had several times extricated him from serious danger, (my horses)," he said, " I found with me when I was alone in the midst of the enemy. ... I will that they shall be fed with grain before the god Ra (the Sun), every day when I am in my palace, because they have been with me in the midst of the enemy's army." During the night the main body of the army arrived. As soon as day appeared, Ramses re-commenced the battle. It raged with fury, for the Khitas wished to avenge their bravest officers, and the Egyptians to wipe away the reproach of cowardice thrown on them by their king. They burned to efface their shame of the previous day. Very soon the Hittite army was overcome, the best of their soldiers fell under the blows Ramses again performed prodigies of of the " Children of the Sun." " The great lion who marched by his horses fought with him, valour. rage swelling all his limbs, and whoever approached him was overThe king mastered them and killed them, and none could thrown. escape him. Cut to pieces before his horses, their corpses formed one great bleeding heap." The king of the Khitas, seeing the flower of his army destroyed, and the rest flying on all sides, resigned himself to submission to the king He sent a herald, who addressed of Egypt, and asked, "Amaun. " the Egyptians and the Khitas are Pharaoh, "Son of the Sun Ra has given thee dominion over them. slaves beneath thy feet. Thou mayest massacre thy slaves, they are in thy power, none of them can resist. Yesterday didst thou airive and kill an infinite number of them; again to-day thou hast come; do not continue the We are prostrate on the earth, ready to execute thy massacre.
. .
. .

orders
lives."

valiafit

king

flower of warriors, give us the breath of our

The king
their

consulted his chief officers on the message from the king ol

the Khitas, and on the answer he should make.

In accordance with

unanimous advice,

satisfied

with the glory conferred on his arms

by the double victory he had gained, and not wishing to drive his warlike enemies to despair, Ramses made peace, and, taking the road southward, directed his march to Egypt with his companions in glory. He entered his capital in triumph, and the god Amen welcomed him to his sanctuary, saying to him, " Hail to thee my much-loved son Ramses. We give thee years innumerable. Rest for ever on the throne of thy father. Amen, and let the barbarians be crushed beneath
thy feet."

This piece of court poetry, attributing to the smgle arm of Ramses

exploits so fabulous, and impossiljle from their very greatness, must not

of course be taken

literally.

But

it

seems to show, that near Kadesh,

Ramses, having

fallen into

an ambuscade, was abandoned by a part of

254
the troops

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

who accompanied

him, and that with a weak escort he shock of the enemy, or prevented it l)y an impetuous received the first charge, thus giving his army time to come up and rescue him from danger; it may undoubtedly be easy to exaggerate an event, especially
for a poet

and a courtier, but it would be a difficult task to invent the whole story. 6. But where the poet had decidedly overlooked facts in recording his king's victory, was in announcing the complete and final submission of The confederation was not yet broken. the Khitas and their allies. Ramses had contented himself with the nominal submission of the chiefs and with the request for " Amaun " after the battle of Kadesh, and had at once returned to Egypt without going personally into the provinces of Araraaa, or Mesopotamia, without rebuilding the fortresses and garrisoning them, or levying tribute at the head of his army. So the pretended peace concluded m his fifth year was in reality only a very Two years afterwards that is, in the same year that Penshort truce.

Mautnur, king of the Khitas, died, and was succeeded by his brother, Khitasar, and war recommenced with more fury than ever. It lasted fourteen whole years with no truce or interruption. Unfortunately we have very
taour

wrote his epic on the prowess of the son of Seti

few details of the successive events that distinguished it, but at know that the vicissitudes of successes and reverses were great.

least

we

Thus, in the eleventh year of the reign of Ramses, the Egyptians were driven back by the Asiatics almost to the valley of the Nile, the
greater part of Palestine

was

lost,

and they were reduced

earlier they

to consider

the capture of Ascalon as a great success, worthy of being represented

on public monuments.

Three years

had besieged Salem,

the city of the Jebusites, of which Melchisedek had -been king in the

many commentators with Jerusalem, and afterwards the siege of Debir at the foot of Mount Taboi-, a northern Amorite city. These exploits are represented on the Pylon of ihe Ramesseum of Kurnah, as well as the capture of Beth Anath, and Kamon, two other cities of Canaan. Afterwards, it is true, fortune smiled on the Egy]Dtian arms, and they drove the allied armies out of Palestine, Phoenicia, and Coele Syria took Kadesh by assault, descended the valley of the Orontes to its extremity, and thus penetrated into the
time of Abraham, identified by
:

heart of the Khita country, pushing on even further in the direction of

Cilicia

and

Pisidia.

Ramses, during
of his

this

long war, several times perat

sonally took

command

army

in Asia.

One

of the historical tablets of the

Ramesseum

Thebes shows him,

receiving from his

after a gi-eat battle against the

Khitas and their

allies,

generals an account of the

number of enemies
In another he
is

slain,

hands are piled

at his feet.

engaged

whose amputated in the fight, two

city

of his sons are pursuing the routed enemy,

\\-ho fly

towards a

under

PEACE WITH THE HITTITES.

whose ramparts
are already

255
to

two other sons of the king preparing

make an
7.

assault.
last, in

At

the twenty-first year of the king's reign and fourteenth

final treaty

of the war, a real and

of peace was concluded between the

to

two

belligerents, with conditions as favourable

the Hittites as to

Pharaoh.

The

text of this treaty,

undoubtedly the oldest diplomatic

and by M. de Rouge. We there read that the king of Egypt received, in the fortress he had built in Ccele Syria to prevent any new invasion of Palestine, and had called by his own name, a visit from the
translated

document

extant, has been preserved in an inscription at Thebes,

king of the Khitas,

who came

to propose conditions of peace.

They
in

stipulated for perpetual peace

and

alliance

between the two nations,

such terms as showed that they treated on a footing of absolute equality.

The

clauses prohibiting either direct or indirect hostility are identical

on

both sides; the two kings reciprocally promise to give no asylum to servants or subjects of the other who may have left their country.
is established between the Egyptians and Such was the treaty terminating the war. After fourteen years of uninterrupted fighting, confined within the bounds of Syria, the famous Sesostris, far from having subjugated his enemies, recogirised their independence and the integrity of their territory; a result very different from the legends of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. As a pledge of the alliance, Ramses receives among his wives a daughter of king Khitasar, who received an Egyptian name, meaning " Gift of the

Entire freedom of trade

Hittites.

great

Sun of

Justice."

To show

his

good

will to the Hittites,

he

re-

established at Tanis the worship of Sutekh, the national deity of these

largest

people as well as of the Shepherds, and built in his honour one of the and most magnificent temples of Egypt ; whilst Khitasar seems

to

have done nothing similar

in

his country in

honour of the gods of

Egypt.
In making this treaty with Ramses, the king of the Hittites had
.separated himself

from his

allies;

he had made no stipulation with

regard to them, and, contented with favourable conditions for himself,

had

left

them

to

manage

for themselves.

The people

of Asia Minor,

Pisidians,

Lycians, Mysians, Dardanians, retreated peaceably to their

and were under no apprehension, for the Hittite country was between them and Egypt. The people of Mesopotamia and of the countries between Lebanon and the Euphrates, however, -were in no position to continue the war, and hastened to submit to the king of Egypt, before he invaded their country. One of the tablets of the
countries,

own

Ramesseum
Rotennu

represents
is,

Ramses giving

that

investiture to the chiefs of the

of the Aramseans, Assyrians, and Chalda^ans

who

recognised his suzerainty.

The

Asiatic conquests of

Thothmes and

Seti

were thus recovered

256

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

;

without the king being obHgecl to cross the Euphrates

the native princes to exercise supervision

Mesopotamia
all

again paid tribute, and Egyptian residents were sent to the courts of

over them. Pharaoh's soldiers were reinstated in some of the most important places,
at

Garrisons of

amongst others

these countries were held were

Carchemish, but the bonds of subjection in which much lighter than they had been under

Thothmes

III.;

and the Egyptian king prudently contented himself

with gratified self-love as a substitute for real power.

From

this

time to the end of the reign of

Ramses that

is,

for nearly

peace was preserved in Western Asia, once the scene of Hostilities did not again break out such long and sanguinary wars. between the Egyptians and Khitas, and the good understanding between
half a century

these rival empires seems to have been uninterrupted.

trace on the

monuments of any

further revolts in

We find no Mesopotamia or Syria;

Museum
time was sent on

these countries remained in a state of partial subjection just as they

were

at

the end of the Hittite war.

papyrus in the British

contains a letter from an Egyptian officer

who

at this

a mission into Phoenicia

he describes the towns he passed through that

were subject Byblos, " the

to

the sceptre of his master in that country, Gebal, or

city

of mysteries," Berytus, Sidon, Sarepta, and Tyre, at

Another papyrus in the same collecmarch of a body of Segor, or Zoar, the only city that had troops in the south of Palestine. survived the destruction of the five doomed cities of the plain of Sodom,
that time merely a fishing village. tion contains orders relative to preparations for the
is

mentioned
8.

in this

document.

Having thus reduced the famous conquests of Sesostns to their The true proportions, we must now speak of his internal government. legends contain stories equally fabulous respecting this also. The more intimately we come to know the history of Ramses II., the less he seems to deserve the title of Great, conferred on him by the first decipherers of Egyptian inscriptions on the faith of Greek tradition. We now know enough to pronounce him a man of very ordinary capacity,
intoxicated with the possession of absolute power, a licentious despot,

ambitious and ostentatious to the extreme, a man so vain as actually to efface, wherever he could do so, the names of his predecessors from their

monuments

in order to substitute his

own.

This Sun-king of Egypt increased the royal harem to an unpreceDuring the sixty-seven years of his reign, he had dented extent. them sons. Considering himself superior to 1 70 children, fifty-nine of
all moi-al

laws, he even went so far as to

marry one of his own daughters,

the princess Bent-Anat.

The Book
finally

of Exodus represents

persecution of the Hebrews.

Ramses as a tyrant because of his He it was who attempted to crush them

and completely by the labours he imposed, and by the cruel

REVOLT OF THE PRISONERS.

edict
over,

257

dooming all their male children to death. The Hebrews, morewere not the only sufferers under his reign, and the calm judgment of history confirms the stigma fixed on him by the Bible. We cannot, without horror, think of the numbers of captives who must have died under the taskmaster's stick, or fallen victims to excessive fatigue and privations of every kind, while employed as slaves on the gigantic works erected to minister to the insatiable pride of the Egyptian king. In all the monuments of Ramses, there is hardly a
stone, so to speak, that has not cost a human life. When, however, the Asiatic wars were ended, captives were wanting for the works.

Then man-hunting expeditions among the unfortunate negroes 01 Soudan were organised on a monstrous scale, unknown in former periods. There was no longer any intention, as under the Thothmes
and Amen-hoteps, of extending the frontier of the Egyptian empire so and gold producing countries. The chief and in fact only aim was to procure slaves. Nearly every year grand razzias were made into Ethiopia, returning with thousands of captives of every age, and of both sexes, loaded with chains.
as to include the ivory

The

principal

incidents

of these negro-hunting expeditions were

!

on the walls of the temples Egypt to practise the system, adopted in later times by the kings of Assyria and Babylon, of transporting conquered people from their own land so as to obviate the danger of rebeUion. He carried into Asia entire tribes of negroes, and "sent to Nubia the Asiatics whose lands he had given to the negroes. This barbarous system was not without its dangers. Diodorus Siculus heard in Egypt a story, apparently authentic, although naturally it has found no place in the official inscriptions of Ramses, being hy no means

actually sculptured as glorious exploits

Ramses was

also the

first

of the kings of

glorious to the

name

of Pharaoh.

According

to

this story,

a large

body of Assyrian and Chaldsean prisoners, who were working in the quarries near Memphis, revolted, being unable to support the excessive

They possessed themselves of a strong place neighbourhood, whence they made incursions into the adjacent country. After having in vain attempted to reduce them by force, the proud Sesostris was obliged to make an agreement with them. He
labour imposed on them.
in that

accorded them a general amnesty, and left them in possession of the fortress they had seized, named by them in remembrance of their

" Babylon." It is now called Old Cairo. All the foreign tribes of Semitic race, attracted by the policy of the predecessors of Ramses into the Delta to colonise the land reclaimed
fatherland,

from the water, were subjected

to the same oppression, to the same routine of forced labour as the Hebrews. Even the indigenous rural population, Egyptian by birth, did not escape. The reign of a warlike

despot,

who

is

also possessed with a

s

mania

for building, is

always a

258

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

class.

deplorable calamity for this

Egypt under Ramses

II.

was no

exception to this general rule.

papyrus in the British

Museum has

preserved the correspondence between the chief librarian of Ramses,

Ameneman, and his pupil and friend, Pentaour, the author of the epic poem wc have already given extracts from. One of the letters describes
as follows the state of the country, and the

people:

" Have you ever conceived what

?

life

of

its

agricultural

sort of life the peasant leads

ripe, insects destroy part
fields
;

who

cultivates the soil

.

Even before

it is

of

his harvest.

Multitudes of rats are in the

next

come

invasions of locusts, cattle ravage his harvest, sparrows alight in flocks

If he delays to get in his harvest, robbers come to from him; his horse dies of fatigue in drawing the plough; carry it off the tax collector arrives in the district, and has with him men armed with sticks, negroes with palm branches. All say, Give us of your Next the corn,' and he has no means of escaping their exactions. unfortunate wretch is seized, bound, and carried off by force to work on

on

his sheaves.

'

the canals; his wife

is

bound, his children are stripped.

And

at the

have each of them his own trouble." 9. In every nation, and at all times, it has been found that art has been unable to resist the degrading influence of a certain amount of

same time

his neighbours

despotism.

The monuments

of

Ramses

II. exhibit

a serious falling off

in Egyptian sculpture, increasing with incredible rapidity as this long It commenced with some works worthy of all admirareign advances. tion as the lie plus ultra of Egyptian art such are the Colossi of Memphis and Ipsambul, but soon the universal oppression which weighed like a yoke of iron on the whole country dried up the source of the All the inventive genius of the country seems to great art inspiration.

have been exhausted

pride.

in gigantic constructions, conceived

No new

generation of artists grew up to replace those

earlier kings.

by boundless who had

been formed under

At

the end of this reign, the degra-

dation was complete, and in the last days of Ramses, as under his son

Merenphtah, we meet with really barbarous works, and sculptures of

extraordinary coarseness.

and pretentious reign of Ramses-Sesostris was, moreover, a period of decadence in every respect, a time of disasters but imperfectly known to us, resembling in some respects the end of the reign of Louis XIV., but without a battle of Denain to gild its last
10.

The

close of this long

moments with glory. The country, enervated by

sixty years of unrestrained despotism,

and

governed by the feeble hand of an octogenarian king, was in no conBut on this occasion the danger did not dition to resist its enemies. come from Asia the invasion was from Northern Africa, and from the
;

Mediterranean Sea. New adversaries were about to enter the with the Egyptian power.

lists

INVASION OF THE LYBIANS.

Since the time of Thothmes III.,

259

who had
fleet,

possessed the whole coast

of Lybia and the Archipelago, a great change had occurred in the

population of these countries.

manned by

light-haired, Ijlue-

eyed barbarians belonging to the Japhetic or Indo-European race,

had arrived on the African coast, and, driving the old inhabitants of the Hamite race of Phut into the interior of the country, had fixed their own residence there. These were the ancestors of the light-haired people whom the French soldiers found still remaining in the mountains of the Kabyles, the Lybians, properly so called, the Lebu of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, and the Mashuash, the Maxyans of Herodotus. The Egyptians designated them by the two generic names of Tamahu, "Northern men," and Tahennu, "men of the mist;" they were closely allied with, and undoubtedly related to, the Pelasgic nations, who had just created a naval power, and were dominant in the Mediterranean, and also to the inhabitants of some of the islands, such as Sardinia, Sicily, and Crete.

The

fleets

of these northern invaders constantly advancing, soon

coasted along Lybia, and towards the end of the reign of Seti began to

The fertile plains of the Delta threaten Lower Egypt from the west. were the object of their desires. During the first part of the reign of Ramses, the Egyptian troops succeeded, although with difficulty, in keeping them back. During his wars in Asia, the king had several But bodies of soldiers recruited among the prisoners of these nations. old, he was no longer able to arrest the when Ramses had become
progress of these Japhetic Lybians.

The

frontiers of the

land

of

and continual incursions laid waste all Lower Egypt. The mass of the nation then seized on the fertile lands laid open to their depredations, and driving back the Eg)'ptian populaThus the proud tion, occupied the whole western part of the Delta.
Mizraim were
violated,

Sesostris

died,

leaving a considerable part

of the possessions

of his

fathers, the very heart of the

kingdom,

in the

hands of barbarians.

Section VI. End of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Foreign Invasions The Exodus. (^Fourteenth Century B.C.) I. Ramses II. was succeeded by his thirteenth son, named MerenHis monuments and inscriptions are phtah (beloved by Phtah). generally found at Memphis, a city famous for the worship of the god His reign was Phtah, where he seems to have moved his residence. one of the most unfortunate in the histoiy of Egypt it presents one

long succession of disorders, invasions, and miseries of every kind, the

necessary consequences of
tlie

tyranny of his father.

The

first

with

whom Merenphtah had

s

their allies, the Pelasgians.

to deal were the Lybians and His war against them is related in a long

"

26o
inscription

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

on the Temple of Karnak, translated by M. de Roug^. We convey the chief features of the stoiy. The northern people of Lybia and of the Archipelago, who had already for some time been masters of part of the Delta, saw in this change of government a favourable opportunity for invading and subA formidaljle army was organised under the comjugating all Egypt. mand of Maurmuiu, son of Batta,* king of the Lybians. The Lybians and Mashuash formed the bulk of the invaders, with the Pelasgian but with them Tyrrhenians from Italy, ancestors of the Etruscans numerous bands of Sardinians, Sicilians, Achieans of the they had The Egyptian narrative gives us the Peloponnesus, and Laconians. the Tyrrhenians had commenced the war, valuable information that and that each warrior had brought his wife and children," thus clearly showing their intention of making a new settlement. A speech placed by the composer of the inscription in the mouth of Pharaoh himself, These describes the evils brought by these invaders upon Egypt barbarians are plundering the frontiers; every day these evil men are They plunder the ports, they invade violating them; they are robbing. the fields of Egypt, coming by the river they are establishing themselves; the days and months pass away and still they remain." The
will give extracts to
;
' '
'

'

sufferings of the

country are described as even greater than during the

" Nothing like this has been seen, even in the times of the kings of Lower Egypt, when the land of Egypt was in their power, and misfortune continued, and when the kings of Upper Egypt had not strength to drive out the strangers. The barbarians advanced without meeting any serious resistance. Already Memphis and Heliopolis were reached, and the invading army had arrived at the city of Paari, in Central Egypt. It was necessary to Merenphtah, who had stop them at once, if Egypt was to be saved. taken refuge at Thebes, assembled an army in Upper Egypt. But he did not venture to expose his person to the consequences of a defeat, by putting himself at the head of his soldiers. He sent one army under
invasion of the Shepherds.
the

command

of

the

surviving generals

of

his

father,

whilst

he

despatched a second body through the desert into Lybia,

diversion in the rear of the enemy.
Paari.
It

to create a

great battle took place near

lasted six hours, and ended in the complete defeat of the

their allies.

Lybians and

The
as
is

official
;

narrative gives the particulars of the loss of the foreign

invaders

the very moderation of the numbers proves their correctness,

almost always the case with Egyptian computations.

killed; the

had 6,359
tribe *

The Lybians Mashuash, 6,300; the Kehak, another Japhetic

Sicilians,

from Northern Africa, 2,362; the Tyrrhenians, 790; the

is

This

the

name "Battus," borne

in later

times by

some of the

Greek kings of Cyrene.

THE EXODUS.

261

250; the numbers ol the losses of the Sardinians, Achneans, and Laconians have been unfortunately destroyed. 9,376 prisoners were made, and a large booty was found in the enemy's camp, amongst other things 1,307 head of fat cattle, as well as a large quantity of bronze
arms, found on the
field

of battle, abandoned by the fugitives,

who
were

were pursued even beyond the frontier, where the fortresses Maurmuiu, king of the Lybians, restored and the garrisons replaced. had disappeared in the battle, \yithout any one being able to say what had become of him, and the nation elected a new chief, who hastened
to treat with Pharaoh.

part of

Thus was repulsed this formidable invasion, which had covered great Egypt witli ruins. The victory, however, was not so complete but that Merenphtah was obliged to adopt the expedient of the later

emperors, who, unable to drive the barbarians entirely away, assigned them lands in the provinces of the empire, after having conquered them in battle. The foreign tribes, belonging chiefly to the

Roman

Mashuash, who for some time had been settled in the Delta, and had formed colonies there, were not driven out; they were allowed to remain in the country on recognising the authority of the Egyptian king, and they were even permitted to furnish a special body of troops, who always formed part of the body guard of Pharaoh. 2. A short time after this invasion of the Lybians and Pelasgians we must place the Exodus of the Israelites. This again was a disastrous
event for Egypt, depriving the country of three million souls, of a hardworking and useful people, besides the injury caused by the plagues

brought

the land by the obstinacy of Pharaoh in resisting the Divine orders communicated by Moses, and by the destruction of the shall not here repeat the flower of his army in the Red Sea.

down on

We

story, as
official

it

has been given in the Second

are silent

Book

of this Manual.

The

that were not retrieved

on this subject, as they are on all disasters by subsequent successes. But the Bible narrative bears unmistakable marks of absolute historical truth, and agrees Thus the perfectly with the state of things in Egypt at this period. continual coming and going of Moses and Aaron to the presence of

monuments

Pharaoh from the land of Goshen, necessarily supposes the residence of the king at Memphis. Now Merenphtah is precisely the only king of the nineteenth dynasty who made this second capital of Egypt his
constant residence.

have already remarked that the Bible does not in any way say or imply, as has often been supposed, that Pharaoh We have shown that the perished with his army in the Red Sea. reverse clearly follows from its language, and, in fact, Merenphtah long
survived the calamities of the Exodus.
his

We

He

reigned thirty years, and

tomb is to be seen among 3. Towards the end of the

the royal sepulchres at Thebes. reign of Merenphtah, another event, very

262

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

unfortunate for Egypt, occurred

it

a new foreign invasion.

We

know

of
;

only from Manetho.

The

narrative has been preserved by Josephus*

Jewish historian, with the bad faith so common with controversialists, has evidently made considerable alterations, in order to bring in the name of Moses, and to transform this into a story of tile Exodus of the Israelites, with which the event has no real conbut, unfortunately, the

nection.

Nevertheless,
distinguish

in

spite

of the
features

interpolations

of Josephus,

we may

the

original

of the

story.

The

king,

Amenophthis (Merenphtah), having brought together into one part of Egypt all the lepers and unclean persons, to employ them in forced labour at the quarries, they, to the number of 80,000, revolted, under
the conduct of a priest of Heliopolis,
.

named

Osarsiph.

Searching

everywhere for allies, they called to their aid the descendants of the Shepherds who had retired to Asia, that is, evidently the Khitas, possessors of a "holy city," made by Josephus, as well as the Cadytis of Herodotus, to stand for Jerusalem, whilst in reality it ought, as well as
the latter, to be the

Kadesh

(the holy) of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, the

famous fortress on the banks of the Orontes. Shepherds answered their call with alacrity.
they came to the help of the unclean

The descendants

of the

To the number

of 200,000

themselves into the valley of the Nile.

inhabitants of

who had revolted, and threw "They practised towards the

Not

Egypt the most

cruel

and sacrilegious tyranny.

only did they burn towns and villages, pillage temples and carry off
the statues of the gods, but they even used the sacred animals for food,

after

compelling their priests and prophets to kill them themselves, and then, having stripped them, drove away the priests." The king did not
consider
it

possible to resist this invasion, and resolved to allow the

He therefore retired into Upper army of 300,000 men, having sent his son and heir Sethos (Seti), five years old, into Ethiopia, where he found a safe asylum. Amenophthis (Merenphtah) died soon after, while the intorrent to pass without opposition.

Egypt with

his

vaders were
4.

still

in the country.

If the Egyptian

monuments remaining

to us

do not mention
it

this

invasion, they bear

numerous

traces of the troubles

full

caused.

Me-

renphtah having died, leaving the country

of the royal family,

of foreigners, and his

legitimate successor hidden in the provinces of the

Upper

Nile, a prince

named Amenmeses, whose

exact place in the royal

genealogy

is

not known, assumed the crown in the city of Chev, the

Aphroditopolis of the Greeks, near the Fayum.

He

seems to have

succeeded at the end of a few years in recovering the greater part of Egypt.

His son, proclaimed after his death in the city of Chev, as Merenphtah II. (Siphtah), succeeded him. To render his occupation
*

Josephus, Cont. Ap.,

i.

28.

SETTLEMENT OF ISRAEL

IN CANAAN.

263

of the throne legitimate, he married a daughter of Merenphtah I., the princess Tauser, whose rights the great chancellor Bai caused to be

recognised by the whole country, though they were at first contested by On all monuments the king gives precedence to his a large party.
wife, as
if

recognising the fact that

slie

had more

right than himself to

the throne.
Prince Seti, the legitimate heir of Merenphtah, still in Ethiopia, recognised the royalty of Merenphtah Siphtah, and received from him
the
title

of Viceroy of the Southern Provinces.

to

But

after

some

time,

thirteen years according

Manelho, he

altered his resolution,

and

Having assembled an army, he insisted on his rights to the crown. descended the Nile, entered Thebes and Memphis in triumph, and The two kings, who had been sucpossessed himself of the throne. cessively proclaimed at Chev, were then treated as usurpers, and their names erased from the monuments. But, on the other hand, Amenmeses and Tauser stand in the lists of Manetho as legitimate sovereigns, the final judgment of posterity having thus evidently recognised them as
such.

The

reign of Seti II. must have been long, but

it,

we know no

particulars of

and possess hardly any monuments.

This king died

without children, and with him ended the nineteenth dynasty, which

had
5.

lasted

74 years.

and the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua were events contemporary with the reign of Seti II. The Egyptians opposed no obstacle, and do not seem to

The

entry of the

Hebrews

into Palestine

have been

at all disquieted.

They considered
Canaan
;

themselves, nevertheless,

and the more distant provinces of But we have Syria and Mesopotamia continued to pay them tribute. already noticed the system of the Egyptian kings with regard to the They allowed the native government of their Asiatic provinces. govern their own states under the inspection of an Egyptian princes to Like the Assyrians and Persians in later times, and the resident.
as sovereigns of the land of

Turkish government in our

own

day, so long as the suzerainty of

Pharaoh was

recognised, the tribute punctually paid,

and the required

military contingents furnished, they gave themselves no trouble about the internal wars of the different tribes ; and rather encouraged, as a

guarantee for the maintenance of their own supremacy, the disputes of petty local chiefs and the wars that employed their forces.

The Israelites in establishing themselves in the Promised Land must have accepted the conditions of Egyptian suzerainty. The Book of Joshua certainly does not say so, but it contains nothing expressly to Occupied The king of Egypt asked nothing more. the contrary. with his own troubles, it would have been difficult and highly imprudent to attempt to oppose the Israelitish force, excited and rendered Moreover, on the eve of a almost irresistible by religious enthusiasm.


264

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

invasion of Canaanitish Kliitas, the Egyptian king would with

new

Canaan (who from community of race were always disposed to take part with his enemies) cut to jiieces. One thing alone would have, doubtless, brought about a direct intervention
pleasure see the nations of

of the Egyptians in the affairs of the land of Canaan, and led them

oppose the Israelites, namely, any interference with the military road along the shore of the Mediterranean, the route between Egypt
to

and the Syrian and Mesopotamian provinces. There the Egyptians exercised a more direct authority ; there they had fortresses and garrisons; there they could not tolerate any conflicts. But Joshua did not feel sufficiently strong to attack the coast cities, and they therefore remained in their previous condition. And as their military road was luitouched, unthreatened, the Egyptians remained quiet spectators of the conflicts between Israel and the Canaanites.

Section VII.

Commencement
(

of the Tw^entieth Dynasty

III.

Ramses
Close

of the

Foitrteetith

Century B. C. )

having died without heirs, a new dynasty, designated by Theban, mounted the throne. We do not know what was as its relationship to the preceding dynasty, or by what title it succeeded to power. Its founder was called Nekht-Set, and had only a short reign, undistinguished by any important event. 2. But this insignificant reign was followed by that of a glorious king, who shed a last radiance on the arms of Egypt on the eve of its entire decline. Ramses III., son of Nekht-Set, seems, from one of the titles in his royal ring, to have exercised during the lifetime of his father a sort of vice-royalty over Lower Egypt, with Heliopolis as his capital. He was very young when he mounted the throne, and had before him The troubles and reverses of the preceding epoch a very difficult task. had seriously compromised the preponderance of Egypt in Asia, the frontiers of the empire were attacked, and it was necessary to fight
1.

Seti

it.

Manetho

again for a great part of the conquests of former dynasties.

Ramses

III.

was an able and

campaigns were entirely deLike Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimus Sevenis, his fensive. efforts were confined to making head against the constantly increasing stream of barbarians, who from all quarters rushed on the frontiers of the empire, and foreshadowed its approaching ruin. His struggles, however, were successful, and he succeeded in preserving entire the great empire constructed by Thothmes HI. and Seti. The palace at Medinet Abu at Thebes is the Pantheon erected to the glory of this gi-eat Pharaoh. Every pylon, every gate, every chamber, gives us an account
valiant warrior, but his

WAR WITH THE

battles.

KHITAS.

265

of his exploits, and great sculptured compositions illustrate his principal

The first war took place in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses III. Lybians of the white race joined with the Takkaro, a people from The the islands or northern shores of the Mediterranean, whose country is
3.

not yet ascertained (possibly Thracians), and who, like the Tyrrhenians,

had a considerable fleet, attacked by land the western frontier of Egypt. They were repulsed with loss. Unfortunately, the details of the straggle are unknowai. Three of the immense bas-reliefs at Medinet Abu give us the chief features, but the inscription accompanying them is so short
that
4.
it

tells

us

little

or nothing.

very long inscription, however, has been preserved, and, in spite

all

of deplorable mutilations, contains

the essential points of a narrative

of another war, the most important of the reign of Ramses, which took
place in his ninth year, in Asia.

In spite of the successive defeats they

had sustained, the Pelasgic nations of the Mediterranean had not given

up

the project of

making a settlement

in

some of the

fertile

countries

belonging to Egypt.

But two disasters, one after the other, had taught them that there was little hope of success if they disembarked in Lybia and attacked the western part of the Delta. They resolved therefore to try a new road, and throw themselves into Syria, where they might find some support among the determined enemies of Egypt in that country. An alliance was made between the Khitas on one side, the Pelasgians and the Lybians, their allies, on the other. It was agreed that the Khitas should attack the Aramsean provinces, and attempt to get possession of them, whilst the people from the Mediterranean, arriving by sea,

would land on the coast. Among these last, the Philistines, then settled in Crete, and the Takkaro seem to have taken the initiative in the projected expedition, as the Tyrrhenians had done in the time of Merenphtah for they furnished the great body of invaders, coming with their wives and children as though in search of new homes ; the other nations
;

furnished only aiixiliaiy detachments.

Ramses, warned of the attack of the Khitas, and of the disembarkation first detachment of the invaders from the sea, saw clearly that his only safety was in rapidity of movement, and that he had no chance of
of the
success but in fighting the

enemy

successively,

in detail,

before they

could unite their forces.

the great
bas-reliefs

He made

the utmost possible haste.

One

of

of Medinet

Abu

represents

his departure

from

" The king," says the inscription, "is leaving for Coele Syria, like the image of the god Month, to trample under foot the people who have violated the frontier. His soldiers are like hawks in the midst of little birds." A second tablet shows us the king marching with his army against the enemy across a mountainous country wooded and He haunted by lions, no doubt one of the spurs of the Lebanon.
Thebes.

266

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

where the Khita army

arrived thus in Ccele Syria, the land of Tsahi,

had penetrated. These Hittites had for allies the people of Aradus, of Carchemish, and the Katti the nations of Asia Minor took no part in this struggle, as under Ramses II.; and it does not appear that there was any insurrection in Mesopotamia, for its people are not mentioned among those then coml:)ined agamsl Egypt. The battle with the Khitas and their confederates is represented on a bas-relief. It took place in the
:

country of the Amorites in the valley of the Orontes, probalily before

Kadesh.

Victory declared for the Egyptians.

their country, as

in the long inscription containing the stor}' of the

Ramses haughtily says whole campaign, " I

have made these people and

existed at all."

though they had never

.The Khitas beaten and driven back into their

own

country,

Ramses

detachment of the northern nations had disembarked some time before, and was slowly journeying southward. It was chiefly composed of Philistines, accompanied and supported by the Mashuash or Maxyans of Africa in great numbers. The sculptures of Medinet Abu relative to this part of the war show us that the Philistines were accompanied by their wives and children riding in rough cars drawn by oxen. It is thus that the Latin writers Attacked by the disdescribe the march of the Cimbri and Teutones. and practised troops of Egypt, this disorganised mass was easily ciplined routed; 12,500 men were killed, the camp was surrounded and carried by assault, and the whole mass of Philistine invaders had no alternative
first

hastened towards the coast, where the

but to surrender at discretion.

On the site of this victory, which was the place where the second detachment of northern invaders were to land, Ramses hastened to build a fortress, called "The Tower of Ramses." His fleet joined him at that It was numerous, and the inscription says that it "looked like place. a strong wall on the waters." Everything was ready to receive the These soon arrived with the ships bringing the new army of invaders. Takkaro, who formed the bulk of the second army of invaders, but with them were a greater number of Sardinians, Lybians, Sicilians, Tyrrhenians,

and people from the Peloponnesus, whom the inscriptions at Medinet Abu no longer call Achocans, but Dardanians, the dynasty of Danaus having supplanted the Achsean dynasty of Inachus on the throne of Argos, in the interval between the reign of Merenphtah and of Ramses III. A gigantic bas-relief shows us the naval battle before The the Tower of Ramses, and the defeat of the allied fleet. Egyptian ships manoeuvre both with sail and oar, and the prow of each ship is decorated with a lion's head. One Takkaro ship is already sunk, and their fleet is driven between the Egyptian ships and the
shore,

whence king Ramses and

his infantry shoot a cloud of darts

against the enemy's vessels.

INVASION OF THE PHILISTINES.

The
recital of the great inscription exactly agrees

267

with this picture,

" The vessels were manned from unique among Egyptian monuments. stem to stern with brave and well-armed warriors. On the shore, the infantry, the chosen men of the Egyptian army, stood like young Hons roaring on the mountains. The horsemen eagerly ranged themselves by
the side of their brave captains.
their strength to trample

The

very horses seemed to collect

'

all

down

the barbarians.
'

As

for

me," says the

whose mouth the narrative is placed, I was as brave as the god Month; I remained at tlieir head, and they saw the exploits of my
king, in

arm.

who who
of

king Ramses, bore myself like a hero conscious of his strength, stretches out his arm to defend men in the day of slaughter. Those approached my frontiers will reap no more in this world, the time
I,

tlieir

souls

is

reckoned in

eternity.'

"

In consequence, however, of this victory over the Philistines, Ramses found an entire nation prisoners in his hands. This was a serious embarrassment ; he could not kill them, old and young together, and was compelled to assign them lands in his dominions, thus realising the
object of their emigration.

Ramses

settled the Philistines in the land

of Canaan, near the cities of Gaza, Ashdod, and Ascalon, where he

There it thought the Egyptian garrisons could keep them in order. strengthened by new immigrations from Crete, they, in the was that,
decline of the Egyptian monarchy, founded a state so formidable for

some time
5.

to the Israelites and Phoenicians. Other bas-reliefs at Medinet Abu represent more battles of the Egyptians with the Asiatics, the assault of one of the Khita fortresses, and Ramses marching out to a new war with them. Several engagements in the eleventh and twelfth years of his reign are represented on the monuments as victories gained over both Asiatics and Lybians.

One
"

inscription states that the southern chiefs can-led their tribute into

Egypt.

"I

grant," says the god

Harmachu

to the king, in this text,

that people

who know

not Egypt shall come to thee laden with gold,

and every precious stone." In the east, Ramses III., having re-established his fleet on the Red Sea, sent it to the coasts of Yemen, or the land of Pun, and again subjected that country to tribute. Lastly, the revolts of the tribes of the Upper Nile, of Soudan and
silver, lapis lazuli,

Abyssinia were vigorously repressed. These military successes were, however, balanced by internal troubles.

The Museum

at

Turin and the Imperial Library

at Paris possess part

of

a judicial process relative to a serious conspiracy set on foot in the reign of Ramses III. The political aim of the plot is not clearly stated in
the documents, but

we

see that the royal

harem took a

large part in

it.

great

number of the
all

king's concubines, and the eunuchs

this plot.
all

them, were involved in

nation to
the gods

Magical incantations,

who guarded "an abomina-

and

the goddesses," held a prominent place in


26S

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

They were judged by a special tlie charges against the conspirators. commission and treated in tlie most severe manner. Ramses, finding the sentence pronounced by the first judges too lenient, altered it by his supreme authority to death, and ordered the judges themselves to be decapitated, as an example how magistrates should perform their duty. We owe the translation of these valuable documents to M. T.
Deveria.

The
British

fact

of a violent opposition breaking out in political plots in the

reign of

Ramses III., no doubt explains a curious papyrus in the Museum. This is an album of caricatures in which the principal
on the walls of the palace of Medinet

has

reliefs

Abu

are parodied
cats

figures of animals.
ratg.*

Scenes in
at

between the harem are represented by a lion and

pictures
fights

The war

become

by and

gazelles.

These pictures are

licentious in the extreme.

of no monument of Ramses III. dated later His tomb, a vast excavation, made after the custom of the kings of Egypt, in his lifetime, is one of the most splendid in the valley of Biban-el-Moluk, at Thebes. 6. From the date of the reign of Ramses III., Egyptian chronology for the first time finds a sure and fixed starting point, the result of an On astronomical date furnished by the monuments of Medinet Abu.
present

We

know

than his twelfth year.

the walls of that palace

Ramses caused
is

to

be engraved a great calendar

it

of religious festivals.

Now

the day on which the feast of the Heliacal

rising of the star Sothisf

marked

indicates that

was engraven

in

The Egyptians

are the rats and the Asiatics the cats.

t The whole chronology of Egypt was regulated by the " Sothic

Cycle," or the periods when the star Sothis, or Sirius the Dog-star rose with the sun. Herodotus says (ii. 4), "The Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts. They obtained this knowledge from the stars. To my mind, they contrive their year much more cleverly than the Greeks, for these last intercalate a whole month every other year [Sia rpirov trovg, but compare Her. i. 32]; but the Eg)'ptians, dividing the year into twelve months of thirty days each, add every year a space of five days, whereby the circuit of the seasons is made to return with uniformity."- Raw-

linson's Translation.
It is evident that this year of 365 days would not in the lapse of time bring back the seasons with uniformity, as the year would be wrong by one day every four years, and the error would in time entirely reverse the seasons. The Egyptians had found by experiment that the Heliacal rising of " Sothis recurred at the end of 1461 years of 365 days, or " vague years, and that these 1461 years were, in fact, equal to 1460 true, or Sothic years. From this cycle the Sothic, or true year of 365^ days, was obtained and as the vague year is indicated in hieroglyphics by the symbol of the


TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST DYNASTIES.
commemoration of the twelfth year of Ramses
III.,

269

being one of the

years occurring only at intervals separated by long ages, and serving as

the point of departure for the great astronomical period of the Egyptians
;

at these periods only their

vague year of 365 days coincided with

Consequently,
the accession of

the solar year.

The

calculations of the celebrated Biot have proved

that this rare coincidence occurred in the year 1300 B.C.

we can with mathematical and

Ramses
in the year 131
1

absolute certainty

fix

B.C.

CHAPTER
Section
I.

IV.

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE.

End

of Twentieth Dyxasty Royal Family.

Twenty-first

[F?'0/?i

Thirteenth to the coinniouenient of Tenth Century B.C.)

I. After the warlike king, to whom we owe the palace at Medinet Abu, fourteen, and possibly more, kings named Ramses continued the twentieth dynasty for more Uian a century and a half. But they did not all form a continuous series the lists of Manetho only admit eight
;

among

the

number

of legitimate kings.

In the midst of the obscurities

surrounding this historical period, of which we have so few monumental

discern troubles and competitions for the throne, and on several occasions, amicable partitions of Egypt between several princes. This, for example, is what occurred among the younger
records,
especially,

we may

sons of

Ramses

III. after the

death of his

first heir,

Ramses

IV.,

who

appears to have governed the whole country, and to have died childless.

palm branch and sun's disc, so this Sothic or square year {annus is marked by the palm branch and a square. The Egyptians also used a lunar year, which agreed with the civil They had also solar year at each " Apis period " of twenty- five years. calculated a great Siderial year of 36,525 solar years, or the number of days in 1 00 Sothic years. Herodotus says above, that the Egyptian month consisted of thirty days but from the fact that the month is represented in hieroglyphics l)y the symbol of the moon, we may infer that in early times they used
quadratiis)
;

a lunar month.
It is

remarkable that Moses,

in his

Egj'ptian

month of
vii.

thirty days, as he
^iii.

days (Gen.

11,24;

3, 4),

account of the Deluge, uses this makes five months to eciual 150 although the Jews used the lunar

month.

Tr.

270

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

None of these numerous kings added any lustre to the name of Ramses. The timid successors of the hero of Medinet Abu knew not how to
preserve entire the glorious heritage of his traditions.
that
It

was

in vain

Ramses

III.

had by

his

victories arrested

for

moment

the

decline of Egypt, for

now

the

full

time had come.

still

Although the monarchy of the Pharaohs

governed Syria, the

subordination of that country became more and more merely nominal.

that unity essential to
;

prolonged contact with Asiatics, Egypt had, moreover, lost its power. Semitic words had been admitted into the language foreign gods had invaded the sanctuaries previously
its

From

inaccessible.

During

this period of general decline

another cause of

weakness appeared. The high priests of Amen at Thebes, with whom that dignity was hereditary, attempted to play the part taken in later times by the mayors of the palace under the Merovingian kings of France; they possessed themselves successively of all the supreme functions, civil and military, gradually undermined the royal authority, and aspired to dethrone the legitimate king. Egypt thus paid the
penalty of the ambition of the conquerors of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.

Depressed

now

in direct proportion to her

former exaltation, she was

to see her territory again trodden

down by

foreigners;

and

after

having

ruled over the Cushites, Lybians, and Asiatics, to be compelled to serve

the kings of those nations. As M. Mariette so well says, "It was because she would not remain on the territory really her own, the Nile valley, as far south as it extends-^-it was because she endeavoured to

impose her authority (in Asia) where a thousand questions of race and climate tended to compromise it, that her too vast empire was dismembered." Here ends the most brilliant period of the history of Egypt.
Powerless to
face so

many

dangers,

the

empire

of

Menes

after

Ramses HI., entered on

time when, under the
priests

the miserable road to ruin.

In the north as in

the south, her conquests were one by one torn from her; and at the
last

king of the twentieth dynasty, the high

assumed the crown of the Pharaohs, we see Egypt reduced to the smallest possible frontier, and surrounded by enemies henceforth more powerful than herself. 2. The nominal submission of Western Asia and the payment of tribute by Mesopotamia were continued, however, till late in the time of the twentieth dynasty. Not only under Ramses IV. do we find the Assyrians paying homage to Pharaoh, but nearly a century and a half later, under Ramses XII., about 1150 B.C., we know positively that Mesopotamia still recognised the suzerainty of Egypt, and paid tribute. This is proved by a stele discovered at Thebes, and preserved in the
Imperial Library at Paris
;

its

long inscription has been studied both by

Dr, Birch and M. de Rouge.

The

subject matter of the inscription

is

THE ARK OF CIIONS

so curious that
it

IN ASSYRIA.
to

271

desen'es mention.

Ramses XII. had gone

triljute,

make

the tour of Mesopotamia, and receive

wlien he met with the

daughter of one of the

chiefs,

and mai'ried

her.

Some years later, when

Thebes, he was informed that a messenger had come from his father-in-law, requesting the king to send a skilful physician to

Ramses was

at

the queen's

sister,

who was

sick of an

unknown malady.

An

Egyptian

physician was accordingly sent back with the messenger.

princess

The young

was

suffering

belief of the period,

spirit.

it

from a nervous attack, and according to the usual was supposed that she was possessed by an evil
all

In vain the physician employed

the resources of his art; the

was obliged to return to Thebes without curing the queen's sister. This occurred in the fifteenth year of Ramses. Eleven years later, in the twenty-sixth year, another ambassador presented himself. This time it was not a physician that the queen's father required in his opinion it was the direct intervention of one of the gods of Thebes that alone could cure the princess. As on the first occasion, Ramses consented to the request, and the sacred ark of one of the gods of Thebes, named Chons, was sent to perform the miracle requested. The journey was long ; it lasted a year and six months. At last the Theban god arrived in Mesopotamia, the evil spirit was conquered, and compelled to leave the body of the young
spirit refused to

obey, and the physician

who immediately recovered her health. But the story engraven on the stele does not end with this cure. A god whose mere presence brought such miraculous cures was inexpressibly valuable ; and at the risk of a rupture with his powerful ally, the father of the young princess resolved to keep the ark in his palace. For three years and nine months the ark of Chons was kept in Mesopotamia. But at the end of that time this treacherous chief had a dream. He seemed to see the captive deity fly away towards Egypt under the form of a golden sparrowhawk, and at the same time he was suddenly taken ill. The father-in-law of Ramses accepted this dream as a warning from heaven. He immediately gave orders for sending back the ark of the god, who in the thirty-third year of the reign
princess,
to his temple at Thebes. adds much to the interest of this curious story, related by a contemporary monument, is, that the event took place but a few years at most after the adventures of the Ark of the Covenant among the

of

Ramses returned

What

Philistines, recounted in the Book of Samuel (i Sam. iv., v., vi.). The two narratives have striking points of contact that can hardly escape the reader. Ramses XII., as we see by the commencement of this stele,

in

the Imperial Library,

still

in the

twelfth century B.C., considered

himself as the legitimate master of Mesopotamia, performed acts of But beyond this mark of vassalsuzerainty there, and received tribute.
age, the authority of the kings of

Egypt over the Asiatic provinces was

from that time merely nominal.

272

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

the Euphrates, they were unable to prevent the formation of
tlie

Beyond

the empire of

Assyrians, wliose power, coinmenciny; in

tlie

])cginninu

of the fourteenth century, gradually progressed and increased.

selves of Gaza,

Even

nearer to their frontier they had allowed the Philistines to j^ossess them-

Ashdod, Ascalon, Gath, and Ekron, and thus render

ilie

themselves masters of

military road, hitherto so carefully guarded,

by which Egypt communicated with Syria and Mesopotamia. They had not intervened in the quarrels of the Philistines with the Israelites and Phoenicians, even when the former took and destroyed Sidon; nor had they interfered when a king of Aramaean Mesopotamia, CushanKishathaim conquered, for the time, Northern Syria and all Palestine. A short time only after Ramses XII., the high priest of Amen, HerHor exercised the supreme power; and during that period we find the last trace of the power of the Pharaohs in Asia. 3. About the same time (in the second half of the twelfth century B.C.) the power of the Assyrian empire suddenly increased; the kings of Nineveh began their career as great conquerors, and before long no authority but theirs was recognised between the Tigris and the Euphrates. In the interior of Egypt Her-Hor (Horus, the supreme), having united to his sacerdotal titles those of superintendent of public works and of generalissimo of the troops, ended by usurping on the monuments the title and marks of royalty, all the while retaining the high priesthood. He was the first who renounced all pretension to the sovereignty of Asia, and abandoned the traditional policy of every Pharaoh since Thothmes I. Adopting an entirely different course, he allied himself closely with the kings of Nineveh, hoping thereby to obtain support in his usurpation. This intimate alliance is marked by the Assyrian names he gave to most of his children. After the death of Her-Hor, the line of the legitimate descendants of Ramses III., who were still in existence, seems for a short time to have regained the ascendancy, as the title of
high priest only
is

given to the son of that personage,

I.,

named Piankh.
is

But soon

after,

with Pinetsem

the royal

titles

reappear in that family,

to continue for

many

generations.

The

race of

Ramses

finally de-

throned; and in order to legitimatise themselves, the usurping priestly

family allied themselves by marriage with a descendant of one of the

competitors of Seti

II.,

the princess Isi-em-Chev.

This family preserved,

its

moreover, the politic alliance with the Asiatics, inaugurated by

founder.

cuneiform inscription in the British

Museum

tells

us of an

Pileser

ambassador whom Pinetsem, or one of his successors, sent to Tiglath I., king of Assyria, who had become master of the Phoenician cities. Amongst the presents borne by this ambassador is mentioned a crocodile, an animal probably new to the inhabitants of the banks of the Euphrates or Tigris.
4.

In the meanwhile a rival dynasty arose in

Lower Egypt,

at Tanis,


TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY.
according to the
lists

273

of Manetho, where also are found the few monuments it has left. It seems now proved that it assumed the crown in that city whilst the last of the Ramses reigned nominally, and the High
Priests of

Amen

in

reality,

at

Thebes.

It

between
torial

this

dynasty and the family of

tlie priest,

was during competitions Her-Hor, that David

terri-

reigned over Israel, and succeeded in creating for a time a great

power, then rendered possible by the weakening of Egypt, and by the fact that the Assyrian empire, still but imperfectly developed, was not at that time strong enough to cross the Euphrates with its armies.

The Tanite kings succeeded,

It

after

a prolonged struggle,

in

triumphing

over their adversaries and in establishing their dominion over all Egypt.

was these

whom

later historians,

such as Manetho, considered as con-

tinuing the series of legitimate kings.

One

of them, Psiu-en-san, a con-

temporary of Solomon, gave him his daughter in marriage an evident proof that this dynasty had renounced all hope of re-asserting its It did not reign, however, much more than a ancient power in Asia.
century,

and was succeeded by another

family, also of

Lower Egypt,

from Bubastis.

When

the Tanite dynasty finally triumphed in Egypt, the descendants

who continued to unite the titles of the high priesthood with those of royalty, retired to Etliiopia, where they fonned and carefully fortified an independent and rival state to Egypt, though with the same language and civilisation. The town of Napata (now Djebel
of Her-Hor,

Barkal) was chosen for their capital, and there they founded a sanctuary of Amen, with an oracle in rivalry with that of Thebes, and pretended
to

have transferred there the rights of the legitimate priesthood.

Section

II.

Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-

fourth Dynasties.
(

Tenth, N'inth,

and Eighth

Centuries B. C.)
to the twentyits

I.

MOST important

fact to

be remarked with regard

is,

second dynasty, called by Manetho Bubastic,

kings and in the paternal ancestors of
its

that in the series of

founder,

who

are

known from

some monuments, nearly all the names are incontestably Asiatic in form, and especially Assyrian Nimrod, Tiglath, Uaserken, Nabonasi, Shapheth and therefore a decisive indication of its origin. Moreover,
from the time of the defeat of the priestly sovereigns of the family of Her-Hor, the preponderance of Thebes finally ceased. All subsequent Plenceforth the dynasties sprang from Lower Egypt and resided there. as those who governed Moslem Egypt kings are real Mamelukes, such
in the

Middle Ages;

all

sprang from bodies of foreign soldiers,

whom we

274
find

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

from
this

time exclusive!}' employed as body-guards to the sovein

reigns

who

reigned on the banks of the Nile.

The manner

which the foreign family of the twenty-second dynasty

A certain succeeded to the throne, we know from the monuments. Uaserken, of Semitic origin, a superior officer in the army, whose family
had previously been connected by marriage with the Theban usurpers descended from Her-Hor, married the daughter of a king who seems to have been the last of the Tanitic dynasty. The child born from this union, Sheshonk, adopted by his maternal grandfather, first governed as He was the head of the new regent of the empire, and finally as king.
dynasty.
2.

Sheshonk, called

in

the Bible

Shishak, gave an asylum

at

his

Jeroboam towards the end of the reign of Solomon; and afterwards, when that personage had put himself at the head of the ten tribes, Sheshonk, following the same policy and in alliance with him, invaded the kingdom of Judah. Thus, as we have already seen, in the fifth year of Rehoboam (973) he entered the land of Judah with 1,200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen, and an immense body of infantry, Egyptians, Lybians, Ethiopians, and Troglodytes; he penetrated to Jerusalem and carried off the treasures of the temple, as well as those These conquests are recorded on a great bas-relief at of the king. dated in the reign of Sheshonk himself, on which are inscribed Karnak, the names of 133 cities of the kingdom of Judah taken by the Egyptian army. The greater part of the names are mentioned in Scripture, amongst others Ralibith (Jos. xix. 20), Taanach (xii. 21, xvii 11), Shunem (xix. 18), Rehob (.\ix. 28), Haphraim (.xix. 19), Adoraim (2 Chron. xi. 9), Mahanaim (Jos. xxi. 38), Gibeon (ix, 3), Bethhoron (x. 10), Kedemoth (xiii. 18), Ajalon (x. 12), and Megiddo (xii. 21). The capital is not mentioned on the monument by its ordinary name " Royalty Jerusalem, but is recognised under the title Jehudah Malek
court to the fugitive

of Judah."
3.

The

exact duration of the reign of Sheshonk

I. is

not

certainty, but

we know at any
I.,

rate that

it

lasted twenty-one years.

known with The

is

history of Uaserken
still full

or Osorchon, as the Greeks wrote the name,

of obscurity.

We

have only reason

to think that

it

was

in his

reign, or in that of his successor, that

Azerch-Amen, king of Ethiopia, Egypt and traversed its whole length to the mouth of tlie Nile, subjected it for the time to his sceptre, and penetrated into Palestine at the head of an army of Ethiopians and Lybians. We have already related [Book II.] how he was conquered on the territory of the kingdom of Judah by Asa, grandson of Rehostarting from Napata, invaded

boam.

The

defeat of the king of Ethiopia

was

so complete that he does not

seem even to have attempted to maintain his position in Egypt, but to

REVOLUTIONS IN EGYPT.
have
retired at

275

own states. However, the road opened by be followed by other Ethiopian conquerors. 4. We shall not stop to enquire into the genealogy and chronology of the Bubastic dynasty, although completely cleared up by the disonce to his
to

his invasion

was soon

M. Mariette at the Serapeum of Memphis; for none of the Sheshonks, Uaserkens, or Tiglaths, who continued it, have made any mark in history by any notable deed. We shall merely state that the twenty-second dynasty lasted for more than a century after Uaserken I.,
coveries of

and

that the kings

were generally so associated

in the

government, that

their reigns occupied in reality a

their several durations
5.

much
to.

less

time than the addition of

would amount

twenty-third dynasty, Tanitic, Hke the twenty-second, consists of only four kings in Manetho's lists. The names of three are found

The

on known monuments, one of whom,

preceding family, brings us
is

called Uaserken, like

down

to the eighth century B.C.;

one of the and there

reason to think that the same system of associating the heir-aplife

parent on the throne during the

of his father, prevailed during this as

well as during the twenty-second dynasty.

But the lists of Manetho give only a very incorrect idea of the history of Egypt at this epoch. At this period, as in all times of trouble, the Sebennyte priest has only registered

the dynasty considered by him and the authorities he followed to be legitimate; he makes no mention and takes no account of its rivals and competitors. But in reality the age of the twenty-third dynasty was a time of contention and revolution; the land was divided between rival families, and full of civil discord. The monuments furnish a certain number of royal names, necessarily belonging to this epoch, and give us some information as to the kings proclaimed in various parts of Egypt in antagonism with the sovereigns of Tanis. The existence of several families

who

disputed the throne, each possessed of a portion of territory,

is,

moreover, clearly alluded to in a passage in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, who then lived and predicted that this anarchy would soon bring
Eg)'pt under a foreign rule.

"

And

I will set

Egyptians

and they

shall fight every

:

the Egyptians against the one against his brother, and every

one against his neighbour

city against city,

and kingdom against king-

dom
cruel lord
;

And
and a

tlie

Egyptians will

give over into the hand of a

princes of

Zoan [Tanis]
;

are deceived

The

state of

king .shall rule over them The become fools, the princes of Noph [Memphis] they have also seduced Egypt" (Isaiah xix. 2, 4, 13). complete disorder and anarchy in which Egypt, torn by
fierce

are

factions, then was, may easily be proved from the long on a stele, discovered by M. Mariette in the ruins of Napata, erected to commemorate the submission of the whole of Egypt to a king, named Piankhi, who made the Thebaid a simple province dependant on Ethiopia, and imposed a tribute on Lower Egypt. The

conflicting

inscription

T 2

276

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

by M. de Rouge,
relates all the details of that

inscription, translated

event, the battles with the chiefs of the Delta,

and the

final

assumption
favouralsly

of the throne at Thebes by the Ethiopian king,

received there by the people.
It

who was

seems that the family of the high priests of Amen, even after its retirement into Ethiopia, had retained many partisans in the priestly city, and during the whole period of Egyptian history we are now considering, Thebes showed itself better disposed towards the Ethiopian kings and their pretensions, than towards the princes who reigned in the Delta. The situation of Lower Egypt at the moment when Piankhi peaceably entered Thebes, and took Memphis by force, is known from the stele at Napata. The two contemporary dynasties alluded to by Isaiah, that of Tanis, registered by Manetho as legitimate, and that of Memphis, three kings of which have become known in consequence of the excavations at the Serapeum,

were not the only ones who strove for power. Lower and Middle Egypt, and especially the Delta, were divided into thirteen petty rival states, with princes at their head who, for the most part, had come from the ranks of the Lybian Mashuash guard Janissaries in fact who by slow degrees had ascended the steps of the throne under the obscure and inglorious kings of the close of the twenty-second dynasty. Five only among them bore the title of king. The most powerful at the time of the invasion of Piankhi were Uaserken of the Tanitic line, considered legitimate by Manetho, Tafnekht of Sais, the Tnephactus of Diodonis Siculus, and Pefaabast, who reigned at Heracleopolis in Middle Egypt. Such a state of anarchy must naturally have made

Egypt an easy prey to the attack of every foreign invader. Thus it was that Piankhi was enabled without serious obstacles to subject for and that the the time the whole country, and to hold the southern part for some time interrupted by a new invader from national existence was the banks of the Upper Nile. 6. The twenty-fourth Saite dynasty comprised but one king, Boken;

ranf, the

Bocchoris of the Greeks, son of Tafnekht, contemporary with

the invasion of Piankhi,

who

reigned only six years.

Whether

this

king succeeded in expelling the Ethiopians from Upper Egypt, or whether he was only one of the petty kings of the north who united Lower Egypt under one sceptre, we cannot tell. We know as yet
this subject.

nothing positive about his reign the monuments contain no record on A new Ethiopian invasion placed the crown of Egypt for
a long time on the heads of the kings of Napata,

and soon swept away Bokenranf, together with the independence of Egypt. the power of

INVASION OF THE ETHIOPIANS.

Section
1.

277

III.

Ethioi'ian Dynasty (725

to

665 B.C.).

have now long passed the period of the great battles of the Osortasens and Thothmes, of those tributes imposed by the Pharaohs,
conquerors of the "vile race of Cush," of those victories reducing the whole Nile valley as far as Abyssinia to the state of an Egyptian province.

We

Cush now

treats Egj'pt as a

conquered country, and comes to

reign in those palaces of Thebes, full of the glories of Thothmes,

Amenhotep, and Ramses. Bokenranf had occupied the throne but a few years when Sliabaka, king of Ethiopia, the Sabacon of the Greeks, the So (Sua) of the Bible,* descended from the neighbourhood of the cataracts at the head of a formidable army of Ethiopians and negroes, and conquered all Egypt even to the shores of the Mediterranean. Having taken the unfortunate Bokenranf prisoner, he had him burned alive, in order probably, by this terrible example, to discourage all resistance. But even in this barbarous act the natives were not sufficiently terrified to prevent them from making efforts to disquiet the Ethiopian government. Then,
as in the time of the

Shepherds, a national royalty continued to exist

in

and struggle against the conquest

some

districts

of the kingdom.

The

family

who

afterwards founded the twenty-sixth dynasty (called

Saite), exercised authority, to all appearance, in the western part of the

Delta, a district easily defended in a partisan war.

gives us a clue to the truth by telling us of a king

Herodotust here

the marshes during the Ethiopian government.

who took refuge in We know also, not

from Egyptian monuments, but from Assyrian inscriptions, that the petty local dynasties of the cities of the Delta recovered their authorkj towards the end of the Ethiopian dominion.
2.

Nevertheless, this partial resistance did not prevent the Ethio[)ian

dynasty from obtaining

called on

great consideration abroad. Shabaka was by Hoshea, king of Israel, for assistance against the Assyrians. The appeal was in vain as far as Hoshea was concerned, but it seems that Pharaoh made an expedition when it was too late to save Samaria, for an inscription at Karnak flatters him by naming Syria as a
tributary.

But soon

after Sargon,

king of Assyria, inflicted a crushing

* The syllable ka, terminating the names of all the kings of the Ethiopian dynasty, was the article in the Cushite language. It may therefore either be added or omitted. The Egyptian monuments and the lists of Manetho give, as the name of the conqueror and founder of the dynasty, Shabaka, or Sabacon, with the article; the Bible transliterates from Shaba, or Shava, without the article; in both cases the

name

is

the

same

in its essential elements.

t Her.

ii.

137.

278
defeat on

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

him
at

Raphia.

The

third king of the dynasty, Tahraka,

no doubt sent liy his father, king Shabaloka (the Sabacon IT. of some Greek writers, the Sethos of Herodotus),* marched against i^ennacherib, when that king of Nineveh invaded the kingdom of Judah. We have related in the book on the histor}' of the Hebrews, the miracle which then destroyed the army of Sennacherib, and delivered Egypt as well as Palestine from a formidable danger. The same Tahraka, when a little later he became during the twenty-six years that he occupied the throne, underking, took considerable wars in Lybia. He is reported to have carried his arms even to the straits of Gibraltar, to the north-west extremity of the continent of Africa. A bas-relief at Medinet Abu represents him holding a number of conquered chiefs together by the hair of their heads, whilst threatening them with his mace. But the end of the reign of Tahraka, so fortunate in its commencement, was full of troubles and disasters. His own official inscriptions, as we might suppose, do not tell us so; we learn this from Nineveh.
whilst
yet only ]-)iince royal, but

In 671

B.C.,

policy, entered

Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib, adopting his father's Egypt at the head of a numerous army, and in alliance

with one of the petty kings of the Delta.

He

conquered before

Memall

phis the troops of the king of Ethiopia, and possessed himself of

Egypt, as far as the

plied

first

cataract.

Esarhaddon reorganised the country on the principle generally apby Assyrian kings to conquered provinces. He divided it into twenty small kingdoms, tributary to the king of Nineveh twelve were comprised in the Delta, among them we remark Tanis, Athribis, Heroopolis, Sebennytus, Mendes, and Busiris. Upper Egypt formed eight others, one of the names given in the Assyrian inscription has not as yet been identified; the seven others are Aphroditopolis, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis, Lycopolis, Chemmis, This and Thebes. The kings of the Delta were the vassal dynasties of Tahraka continued in power, those installed in Upper Egypt were in part natives, and in part Necho, Assyrians; the king of Thebes was called Month-Mei-Ankhi. prince of Sais, whose family had always energetically opposed the Ethiopians, and who had displayed great courage in his assertion of the national independence, was made superior to the others, and received possession of Memphis. In conforhiity with the usual custom of the Ninevite kings in conquered lands, Esarhaddon gave Assyrian names to some of the chief cities of Egypt. Sais was named Dur-Bilmati (the Fortress of the Lord
;

of the Land), Athribis, Limur-patis-Asshur (Dwelling of the Vicegerent

*

Herodotus has followed the form Shabato or Shavato without the

article, the final ka.

INVASION OF THE ASSYRIANS.

279

of Asshur), Mempliis, Dur-Asshurakhiddin (Fortress of Esarhaddon),

and Tanis, Dur-Banit. He then returned to Nineveh, and on his way caused to be engraved on the rocks at Nahr el Kelb near Beyrut, a
stele, still 3.

remaining there to commemorate his conquest The country remained two years in the hands of

of Egypt.
the Assyrians,

and Esarhaddon entitled himself in official documents, "king of Egypt and Ethiopia." But in 669 u.c, when he was attacked by the illness that proved fatal to him, Tahraka profited by the circumstance to reconquer the whole Nile valley. Thebes welcomed him with enthusiasm as the defender of the cause of Amen, and the priests, very hostile to the Assyrians, opened to him the gates of Memphis. Pursuing his course of success, he attacked the kings of the Delta, beat them in several encounters, drove most of them from their cities, and compelled them with their partisans to take refuge in the country near Sais, intersected with canals, where they with difficulty maintamed their
position.

In the meantime, Asshur-bani-pal succeeded his father on the throne

of Nineveh.
city of Tanis,

He

assembled a numerous army, and marched to Egypt

to restore the position of affairs.

The Assyrians took

possession of the

or Dur-Banit, without striking a blow.

;

Tahraka was

then at

he dispatched his army northward, and a great battle was fought before Tanis. The Ethiopians were defeated with enormous loss. When Tahraka received intelligence of the defeat of his troops, he gave up all idea of holding Memphis, and fled in haste
to

Memphis

Thebes, where he hoped to find a firmer support in the attachment

of the people.

The kings who had

pal,

retired

towards Sais, came to meet Asshur-bani-

and pay their homage. Fle made with them a triumphal entry into Memphis, and then marched without loss of time into Upper Egypt. In forty days he arrived at Thebes, where, however, Tahraka did not venture to await him. The Ethiopian king retreated beyond the cataracts, and all Egypt was again in the possession of the Assyrians. Asshur-bani-pal, having re-estahilished the organisation created by Esarhaddon, and left fresh garrisons in the fortresses, returned to
Assyria.

who had

But he had hardly left the country, when the princes of the Delta, not found any real advantage in exchanging an Ethiopian for

an Assyrian sovereign, conspired to recall Tahraka under the condition that he should continue them in power. The chiefs were Neclio,
prince of Sais and

Memphis,

Saretikdairi,

prince of

Tanis,

and

Pakrur, prince of the Arabian nome.

they were arrested,

loaded with chains,

their

There they protested

plot was and conveyed to Nineveh. repentance, and Asshur-bani-pal, no doubt

The

discovered, and

from policy, forgave them.

28o

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

this time a great insurrection

During

had broken out

it,

in the Delta.

The Assyrian

generals succeeded in quelling

but only after having

taken by assault Sais, Mendes, Tanis, and Heroopolis.

re-entered Egypt,
fixed his capital at

having again subdued

Thebes. blockaded Memphis, and pushed his troops into the Delta, the greater part of which they occupied, and the Assyrians were almost driven out
of the country.

Tahraka had and Marching towards Lower Egypt, he had

all

the upper region,

Asshur-bani-pal

now

sent Neclio into

Egypt with an Assyrian army.

The
S.S

Saite prince recovered the Delta from the Ethiopians, and installed

local

king

in Athribis, his son

the Assyrian

name

Nal:io-sezib-anni.
to

Tahraka reduced
after died.
4.

Psammetik, who had then adopted Memphis was then relieved, and the possession of Upper Egypt, where he soon

Rot- Amen, son-in-law of Tahraka, succeeded him on the thrones

of Thebes and Napata.

great battle, in taking

With

all

the ardour of youth, he undertook

the expulsion of the Assyrians.

He

succeeded at

first

in

winning a

Memphis, making the Assyrian garrison prisoners, and even in rendering himself master of the Delta. Necho, taken prisoner in Memphis, was put to death by Rot-Amen. But Asshur-bani-pal, having been informed of the misfortunes of his army in Egypt, undertook a new expedition to that country, as the
Assyrians attached the highest value to
its

possession, for
in

it

appeared
of

to thein the only guarantee for their

supremacy

Syria.

The king

the Arabs, as vassal, furnished the Assyrian

a supply of water across the desert. beaten near Pelusium, and the Ethiopian prince

army with camels to carry The troops of Rot-Amen were

then

abandoned

Memphis, and Asshur-bani-pal entered

blow.
to him.

that

city

without strikmg a
their submission

The

petty kings of the Delta hastened to

make

Asshur-bani-pal then marched on Thebes, and

it,

although he had hastily erected fortifications for

Rot-Amen abandoned its protection. The

Asshur-

city of

Amen was

given up to be pillaged by the Assyrians, and the

that
it

devastation was so great

never recovered the blow.

bani-pal carried off as trophies, and sent to Nineveh, the two obelisks
erected before one of the principal temples.

But

this success did not

lead to any lasting result, for he was soon compelled to see the impossibility of

maintainmg himself

in

Egypt, and decided on evacuating the

country.*

On

Journal
1868.

(TArclu'olcgie

the .subject of these events, see Mr. George Smith, in the Egyptienne de Berlin, September and October,


THE DODECARCHY.
5.

281

records of this epoch, however, do not all relate exclusively Herodotus attributes to Sabacon the abolition of the punishment of death, and the substitution of hard labour. Diodorus Siculus speaks of the numerous canals, and Herodotus* of the embankments intended to raise the mounds on which towns were built to keep them above the level of the inundation, works all due to the Ethiopian It has been objected that this legislation and these works do dynasty. not correspond with the violent and fierce character of the murderer ot Bokenranf, and that they must be assigned to one of his successors but, leaving out the question whether Bokenranf had not drawn on himself this terrible punishment, possibly by ordering some cruelties to be inflicted on Ethiopian prisoners, or whether he was treated by Shabaka as a rebel vassal, it must be remarked that the works connected with the inundation of the Nile were works of necessity, and requiring prompt execution in order to remedy the damage consequent on the conquest. We see, at Luxor, Shabaka making offerings to the gods of Thebes, in the same way as a native sovereign, and he and his successors adopted Egyptian prenomens. The Greek historians relatet that in the twenty-sixth year of his reign This Tahraka suddenly evacuated Egypt and retired to Ethiopia. not as voluntary retreat of the Ethiopians seems to be a fact, but It must be relating to Tahraka, who died king of Upper Egypt. Herodotus asserts that it was ascribed to his son-in-law, Rot-Amen. No doubt some superstitious motive conin consequence of a dream. tributed to this unexpected resolution, but it is probable that the special
to wars.
;

The

reason was a powerful insurrection in

Lower Egypt.

Section IV.

The Dodecarchy The Saite Kings

(665527
B.C).

I. After having related the end of the Ethiopian dynasty, Diodorus Siculus says, " There was then in Egypt an anarchy lasting two years,

during which the people gave themselves up to disorder and intestine At last twelve of the principal chiefs laid a plot. They met at wars.

Memphis, and, having entered

themselves kings.
fell

into

reciprocal

treaties,

But at the end of into the hands of one of them."

chief event of the

fifteen years the

proclaimed whole power

two years of complete anarchy following on the retreat of the Ethiopians is related by an inscription on a stele, disThe son-in-law of Tahraka having covered by M. Mariette at Napata.

The

Her.

ii.

137.

t Her.

ii.

139.

282
(lied

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

without direct heirs after a a very short reign, a personage

named

Amen-meri-Nut, who must have been more or

less distantly related to

him, caused himself to be proclaimed in his place. A prophetic dream had announced this elevation to him, and also that he sliould re- unite the crown of Eg\'pt to that of Ethiopia. Consequently, profiting by the fact that Egypt had no supreme king, he entered the country at the head of a numerous army in order to claim the sovereignty. Thebes
received
aspect.
coalition

him

joyfully

but at

Memphis

matters assumed a different

their differences,

The

chiefs of the Delta,

composing

formed a
the

against the Ethiopian invader, disputed

it

his

entry into
its

sacred city of Ptah, and

required a bloody battle to open

gates to

him.
his

After having remained there some time, Amen-meri-Nut pursued

;

far as the marshes of the Delta Init he could not take and the inundation soon forced him to retire to Memphis. Whilst he was preparing a new expedition, the chiefs, who had successfully resisted him, hoping that he would retire when his avarice was satiated, sent him a considerable tribute. Contented with this result the Ethiopian king, who seems only to have wished in reality to make into Egypt one of those great razzias of which war in the east so often

enemies as

their cities,

consists,

took the road for his

is,

own

states, leaving the greater part

of

the country, that

2.

the Delta and

Lower Egypt,

to itself.

invasion of Amen-meri-Nut, by showing the danger of anhad been one of the chief means of bringing about a state of comparative order, as well as the regular establishment of the Dodecarchy, archy.

The

Egypt, and
origin,

The twelve chiefs or kings who then amicably divided Lower who were for the most part identical with those of the time

of Tahraka, belonged probably to the Masliuash soldiery, Lybian by

who had been established in the Delta since the reign of Merenphtah (nineteenth dynasty), and had become the chief military strength of the country. The fact appears the more certain in the case of Psammetik, the one of the chiefs who ended by reigning alone ; his name is not at all Egyptian, and its form is, on the contrary, entirely Lybian. But though of foreign origin, his family had identified itself with the interests and patriotic passions of the people. His father and grandfather, in the country of Sais, had continued to resist during the greater part of the Ethiopian invasion. His father, too, Necho, as we have seen, fell a victim to the national cause. As for himself, he had, under an Assyrian name, been made king of the city of Athribis, by
Asshur-bani-pal.

Whilst the Dodecarchy thus governed Lower Egypt, the Thebaid continued to belong to the Ethiopian kings. It was in the hands of Piankhi II., successor of Amen-meri-Nut, who seems to have occupied the throne but for a very short time. This king, whom everything
proves to have been merely a parvenu, shared the power with his wife,

REIGN OF PSAMMETIK.
Araen-iritis, sister of Sliabaka,

283
to legithnate his

whom

lie

had married

pretensions in the absence of direct

lieirs

of Tahral<:a.

Amen-iritis,
;

moreover, was a

woman

of rare intelHgence and superior merit

she

had on many occasions

l)een

charged

witli tlie

regency of Egypt under

the three sovereigns of the Etliiopian dynasty, and had

made

herself

very popular in Thebes and

3.

its

neighbourhood.
the twelve confederate kings

The good understanding between

Herodotus says an oracle had predicted that all Egypt should belong to him iM'ho should first make libations to Ptah from a vessel of bronze. One day, when the twelve princes were offering a sacrifice, the high priest brought them the golden cups they were in the habit of using; but he had mistaken the number, and brought only eleven for the twelve kings.* Then Psammetik, who possibly had prepared the scene beforehand, in order to appear to be
lasted fifteen years.

the

man

intended by the oracle, finding that he alone was without a

it

cup, took his bronze helmet and used

for his

libation.

Exile in

the marshes was the consequence of this action, noticed by the other
kings.

Psammetik resolved
oracle for himself.

to resent this outrage,

and sent

to

consult the

avenged by brazen
clothed in armour.
still

The answer he received was that he men issuing from the sea. A short time
coast,

should be
afterwards
shore,

some Greeks, who had been shipwrecked on the

came on
to

An

Egyptian ran

to bring the

news

in the marshes, and,

having never seen

men armed

in that

Psammetik, way, said

that

brazen

country.
plished,

men had issued from the sea and were plundering the The king, understanding from this that the oracle was accommade an alliance with the Greeks, and engaged them by large
Afterwards, with these auxiliaries and the
faithful to
at

promises to take his part.

Egyptians

who had remained

campaign, gained a decisive battle

restored to
first

him, Psammetik commenced the Mo-Memphis, dethroned the eleven

kings his colleagues, expelled the Ethiopians from the Thebaid, and

Egypt

its

ancient territory, from the Mediterranean to the

cataract.

To conciliate the numerous partisans whom the Ethiopians, as we have already said, had in Upper Egypt, he married the princess Shap-en-ap, daughter and heiress of Piankhi II. and Amen-iritis. The suzerainty of Assyria had been recognised by the kings of the Dodecarchy. By dethroning them, Psammetik put an end to this vassalage, and re-established the complete independence of Egypt. Gyges, king
him in this enterprise. Psammetik I., the Psammetichus of the Greeks, when once in possession of supreme power, ignored ail that occurred since the death of
of Lydia, assisted
4.

Her.

ii.

151.

"

284

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Tahraka, independently of himself, during the two years of anarchy and fifteen years of the Dodecarchy, and dated his monuments from
the seventeenth year of his reign.

Owing

his elevation to the assistance

of foreigners, he continued to invite numbers of them to come to Egypt.

He

brought mercenaries from Arabia, Caria, and Ionia, gave them

pay,

handsome

the Nile and the city of Bubastis, in one of the

military class

and assigned them lands between the Pelusiac mouth of Nomes where the was already established. At last he entrusted to foreigners
dignities of the country.

some of the highest

In an expedition into
all

Syria he went so far as to give the auxiliary troops

the posts

ol

hcmour, and ])laced them on the right of the army.

The

military Paste,

wounded

in its

honour and injured

in its interests,

emigrated in a'body,

and formed an establishment in Ethiopia. This desertion of 200,000 men, who represented nearly the whole military strength of the country, must naturally have seriously weakened Egypt. In vain Psammetik

humbled
remain
class,

his pride sufficiently to invite their return

they preferred to

in Ethiopia.

Psammetik then

allied himself still

more closely with

foreigners,

and to ensure the good-will, at any rate, of the sacerdotal he was prodigal in his gifts to the temples of the gods. He built at Memphis a pylon before the temple of Ptah, and built, or rather added to, the sacred edifice in which Apis was kept when he manifested himself. Owing to these works, Egyptian art had one final
renaissance, lasting during the time of the Saite dynasty.
attain to the truth
It

did not

and grandeur of the ancient schools, but, nevertheless, produced a great number of beautiful works remarkable for their exquisite finish. It seems also that at this time a portion of the sacred books, particularly the famous Funereal Ritual, were revised. This founder of the real power of the twenty-sixth dynasty also occupied himself actively in the administration of the State, augmented the

revenue by encouraging foreign commerce, facilitated intercourse with

Greece and Phoenicia, and thus brought Egypt out of the mysterious
isolation

which the policy of many centuries had maintained. " Psammetichus," says Diodorus Siculus, "received with hospitality strangers who came to visit Egypt. He was so fond of Greece that he had his Lastly, he was the children taught the language of that country. first Egyptian king to open to other nations the centres of commerce, and give security to traders; for his predecessors had made Egypt inaccessible to foreigners, killing some and condemning others to
slavery.

wished

Desirous of strengthening his dynasty by military glory, Psammetik to imitate the policy of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties

in Asiatic countries,

and to conquer Syria; for the rich Phoenician where commerce had for ages accumulated the treasures of the cities, But he was arrested at the first step, world, excited his cupidity.


CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AFRICA.
nearly on the frontier of Egypt, by
tlie

285
cost a

city of

Ashdod, which
it.

twenty-nine years' siege before he succeeded in taking

5.

Necho,

his son, continued the war,

and

at first

made more
Thothmes

rapid
III.,

progress.

Near Megiddo, on

the ancient battle-field of

he conquered the Syrians and Jews commanded by Josiah, king of Judah, who wished to oppose his progress (609 B.C.), and for the moment possessed himself of all Syria. But at this time, between the Tigris and Euphrates, a redoubtable empire had arisen, and had attained under Nebuchadnezzar I. the highest degree of power. This was the Chald?eo-Bab) Ionian monarchy. A contest between these two powers, both claiming supremacy in Asia, was inevitable. The kings of Egypt and Babylon met on the banks of the Euphrates, near Circesium, or Carchemish. Necho was overcome and put to flight one single battle stripped him of all his conquests, and compelled him to retire to Egypt
;

(604 B.C.).
this king. Like his he had devoted himself to the peaceful work of the extension of Egyptian commerce. Intercourse with foreigners, now become more common, and rendered more easy by the institution of a new body of interpreters, had enlarged the king's ideas and inspired him with the most noble projects, amongst others tliat of re-opening the canal of Seti I., from the Red Sea to the Nile, obstructed for ages by the sands of the desert, through the carelessness of the worthless kings of the twentieth dynasty. The work had thus become as difficult as if undertaken anew, and Herodotus states* that 120,000 men perished whilst engaged on it, from epidemics breaking out among the crowds of workmen but it was never finished. Necho after a few years suddenly suspended the work, on account of an oracle that warned him that he was working for the barbarian. Although tlie canal was abandoned, the expeditions by sea were continued. Wishing to extend the commercial relations of Egypt, Necho undertook the circumnavigation of Africa. He directed some Phceni-

Foreign wars were not the only occupation of

father,

cians to

make

the circuit of the Afi'ican continent, over seas

then

unknown

Arabian Gulf and returning through the Straits of Hercules. The voyage lasted three years, and the history of it is accompanied by circumstances that the Phoenicians cannot have invented, thus proving that it really was accomplished. t But it produced no results, and the knowledge acquired by this adventurous voyage was soon forgotten.
the
*

to the whole world, sailing

down

Lyl^ia they had the sun on their right words, that the sun at noon was to the north instead of to the south. A fact recorded by Herodotus (iv. 42), though he admitted that he considered it incredible. Tr.

Hkr. ii. 158. t "That in sailing round

or, in other

hand";

286
6.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Psammetik II., the Psammis of the Greeks, who succeeded his Necho, reigned only six years, and died on his retum from an

father,

expedition against the Ethiopians.

He

put forward pretensions to the

riglit to it by allying he married his own aunt, the princess Net-aker, daughter of the queen, Shap-en-ap, and grand-daughter of

crown of Ethiopia; and,

in

order to create a

himself to their royal

Amen-iritis.

line,

His expedition against Ethiopia has

left

some curious monuments

in

the Greek and Carian inscriptions, engraved by the mercenaries of his

army on the legs of one of the famous of the Temple of Ipsambul, in Nubia.
7.

colossi,

ornamenting the fa9ade

After him, his son, Uahprahet (the sun enlarges his heart), called by

the Greeks Apries,

mounted

the throne, and reigned twenty-five years.

;

and with a numerous an unsuccessful attack on the island of Cyprus, assailed Phoenicia, took the city of Sidon by assault, and spread terror through This is the king named Hophra in the Bible, all the Phoenician cities.
recurred to the old policy of Asiatic wars
after
fleet,

He

who

catne to the help of Zedekiah, king of Judah,

Nebuchadnezzar.

But

his interference

was

useless,

when threatened by and only drew down

a Babylonian invasion on the eastern provinces of the Delta.

Some time after this Uahprahet, having sent an army against Gyrene, and the expedition ending unfortunately, the army revolted. He sent a certain Ahmes, the Amasis of the Greeks, to appease the tumult. He went to the insurgents but while he was haranguing them, an Egyptian, who was behind him, placed a helmet on his head, exclaiming Ahmes made no objection, and that he had crowned him king. marched against Uahprahet, who put himself at the head of his merThe two armies met at Mo-Memphis and commenced battle. cenaries. The mercenaries fought with courage, but, outnumbered, they were Uahprahet, made prisoner, was conducted to Sais, and condefeated. He was at fined in the magnificent palace he had inhabited as king.
;

first

treated with generosity

but the Egyptians,

whom

the unfortunate

prince had
foreigners,

much wounded in their national required Ahmes to give him up

pride by his preference for

to

them.

They no sooner
his predecessors,

had him in their power than they strangled him. 8. Ahmes, or Amasis, in imitation of the policy of

married the heiress to the rights of the Saite dynasty, the princess

Ankhs-en Ranofrehet, daughter of Psammetik II. At the commencement of his reign the Egyptians, as we learn from Herodotus,* had but little consideration for him, as he was of obscure parentage; but he raised himself in their opinion by his prudence and ability: he compared
himself,

speaking to a large assembly, to a golden vase,

*

Her.

ii.

172.

PROSPERITY AND WEALTH OF EGYPT.

employed
at first for

287

purposes, but afterwards worked up into becomes an object of adoration to all. This king was a clever man, and knew perfectly how to combine pleasure with a due regard to affairs of state. He said to his friends,* "Bowmen bend their bows when they wish to shoot, and unbrace them when shooting is over. Were they always kept strung they would break, and fail the archer in the time of need. So it is with men. If they give themselves constantly to serious work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or sport, they lose their senses and become mad or moody." According to the testimony of Herodotus, t "the reign of Amasis was the most prosperous time that Egypt ever saw the river was more liberal to the land, and the land brought forth more abundantly for the service of man than had ever been known before, while the number of inhabited cities was not less than 20,000." This numl;er, furnished by the priests, comprised, no doubt, even villages and hamlets; for under the Persian rule, they were desirous of exaggerating the splendour of Egypt before the conquest. The extensive commerce then carried on by the land of the Pharaohs with foreigners, and above all with Greece, was one of the principal

common
it

the statue of a god,

when

causes of the prosperity of the country in the

last

days of

its

inde-

pendence.

and

active

Amasis extended his special protection to the industrious Greek people, and not only permitted them to make a
at

settlement
religion,

Naucratis,

but

authorised

the free exercise of their

of temples and altars to and most celebrated of these temples was called the Hellenium. It was built by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; of the lonians, Chios, Teos, Phociea, Clazomenae of the Dorians, Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicamessus, Phaselis; and of the Cohans, Mytelene.J The ^-Eginetans had also built a temple to Jupiter, the Samians Amasis even contributed a sum to Juno, and the Milesians to Apollo. of a thousand talents of alum for the reconstruction of the temple at Delphi, which had been destroyed by fire. At the same time he allied himself to the Greeks of Cyrene by marrying Laodice, a daughter of one of their princes, and sent to the city of Cyrene a gilt statue of He, moreover, gave to difMinerva, together with his own portrait. ferent Grecian temples many statues and some very valuable works of The Greek historian art, as Herodotus, who had seen them, testifies. also tells us that the island of Cyprus was conquered and re-united to Egypt by Amasis. This magnificent prince was not likely to forget in his liberality the gods of his own country. The temple of Isis, in the city of Memphis,
sites for the erection

and gave them

their divinities.

The

largest

||

Hkr.

ii.

173. Ibid.

t
ii.

Ibid.

ii.

180.

177. Ibid.
Ii

J
ii.

Ibid.

ii.

178.

182.

288

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

mentioned by Herodotus* as most admirable; that of Neith at Sais, tlie porticoes of which surpassed, it is said, any worl< of the kind, both in elevation and in the size of the columns; and lastly, the monolithic

chamber which he had made at Elephantine all prove that in his reign art had not retrograded since the times of the Psammetiks. Egyjit, then, in the time of Amasis seems to have been as flourishing
any period of her history, though this prosperity but thinly veiled and of national institutions. The Saite kings hoped to breathe new life into Egypt, to infuse new blood into
as at

the decline of public spirit

the veins of the old monarchy of Menes, by allowing free current to the
liberal ideas already

propagated by the Greeks.

Unconsciously they

had

in this

the banks of the Nile.

way introduced new elements of decay into the empire of The basis and safeguard of Egyptian civilisation
Its

was
last.

its

immutability.

very foundation consisted in preserving

its
it

traditions intact in spite of the lapse of ages,

and thus only could

it

From

the

moment
It

that

it

came

in

contact with the spirit of

civilisation,

progress, personified in the

to destruction.
letter

Greek race and

was doomed

could neither enter on a

its

new road

contrary to the

and

spirit

of

laws, nor yet continue immovable.

influence began to

lisation at

make itself felt, Egyptian civionce began to decline, and collapsed into a state of death-like decrepitude. The military caste having almost entirely emigrated, the
Thus when Greek
its

nation was disarmed.

with

defence,

Foreigners, disliked by the people, were charged and had even been employed in foreign wars and

conquests ending in disaster.

revolt,

The

public indignation culminated in

bold adventurer had possessed himself of the throne, and

to these

had found the country so committed

new ways,

that he himself

favoured the foreigners, thus contributing to the riches of Egypt, but

also exciting the cupidity of conquerors.

When

these arrived,

Egypt
arms.

could oppose to them only a people

the son of Amasis,

who had

lost all aptitude for

Psammenitus of the Greeks, So mounted the throne to see, almost immediately on his accession, the independence of Egypt succumb finally to the attack of the Persians under Cambyses.
III., the
*

Psammetik

Her.

ii.

175.

289

CIVILISATION,

CHAPTER V. MANNERS, AND MONUMENTS OF

EGYPT.
Chief Aictkorities.

For Manners and

Organisation: Herodotus, Book II. Diodonis Siculus, Book I. Caillaud, Rechcrclus sur les Arts el Metiers de lancienne Egypte, Paris, 1829. Rosellini, Monumejili
Social

delP Egillo e della

Nubia; Monumenti

civili,

Florence,

1833.

Wilkinson, Manners
1847.

The great works of Champollion and Lepsius.

Paris,

and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, London,

For Language and Writing:

glyphiqiie,
lini

Champollion, Precis du Syslhne Hieroi?>2'6. Gram ma ire Egyptienne, Paris, 1836. Dictionnaire Eg)ptien, Paris, 1841. Lepsius, Lettre a M. Rosel-

Systeme Hieroglyphique, Rome, 1837. Grammar, Di^iioitary, and Chrestomathy, by Dr. Birch, in the 5th vol. (2nd ed.) Bunsen's ''Egypt's Place,'' etc., London, 1868. Briigsch, Scriptura A^gyptiornm Demotica, Berlin, 1848. Grammaire Demoliipie, Berlin, 1856. Hieroglyphisch Dcmotisches ^orterbuch, Leipzig, i868. De Rouge, Lettre a M. de Saulcy sur PEcriture Demotique, Paris, 1849. Grammaire Egyptienne, 1st part, Paris, 1867. 7he Journal of Egyptian Philology and Archeology of Berlin.

sur

le

For

Religion : Champollion, Pantheon Egyptien, Paris, 4. Birch, Gallery of Egyptian Antiquities from the British Museum, London, 1844. De Rouge, Notice dcs Monuments Egyptiens die Alusee du Louvre. Memoire sur la Statuette Naophore du Vatican, Paris, 185 1. Mariette, Mhnoire sur la mere d' Apis, Paris, 1856. Chabas, Hymned Osiris, Paris, 1857. Lepsius, Das Todtenbuch der ^gypter, Leipzig, 1842. De Rouge, Etudes sur le Rituel Eunerairc, Paris, i860. F. Lenormant, Les Livres chez les Egyptie?is, Paris, 1857.

For

the

Monuments

work,

"Description

The volumes on Antiquities, the great French de P Egypte." Champollion, Lettres

in
ecrites

d'Egypte, Paris, 1833 ; 2nd ed. 1868. Nestor, L'llote, Lettres d' Egypte, Paris. Lepsius, Brufe aus ALgypten und ALthiopicn, Berlin, 1852. The two first volumes of Denkmdler aus Aigypten tend ALthiopien. Ampere, Voyage en Egypte, Paris, 1868. Ch. Lenormant, Beaux Arts et Voyages, vol. ii.

Section
I.

I.

Socl\l Constitution.

was the foundation of the which royalty formed the summit. The number of these classes varies in the accounts of Herodotus and Diodonis Siculus. The first* mentions seven, priests, warriors, cowdivision of the people into classes
social constitution of Eg)^)!, of

The

Her. ii. U

164.

290

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

herds, swine-herds, tradesmen, interpreters, and

boatmen; the second* husbandmen, shepherds, artizans. This difference between two historians, who had both seen and travelled in Egypt, shows that the information they have transmitted to us on this point was incompletely and carelessly colMoreover, many of the occupations we Ihid mentioned on the lected. monuments cannot be easily included in any of the classes enumerated by the two Greek writers. It has long been supposed, on the faith of testimony imperfectly understood, that the Egyptian people was divided distinctly into castes. A modern scholar, J. J. Ampere, has completely disproved this idea.t Caste, in fact, only exists when three conditions are imposed on its members to abstain from certain forbidden occupations, to contract no alliance beyond the limits of the caste, and to continue to practise the profession of their fathers. Now to speak only of the sacerdotal and military classes, in which, according to Herodotus and Diodorus, occupations were handed down from father to son, we learn from the monuments, first, that the sacerdotal and militai-y functions, far from being exclusive, were often joined one to the other, and either or both ol them with civil positions, as the same person is known to have had a sacerdotal, a military, and a civil title; secondly, that a personage invested with a military title could marry the daughter of a sacerdotal dignitary ; thirdly, that the members of one family, father and sons, might fill, some military, others civil positions, and the offices did not
divides the people into only five classes,

priests, vs'arriors,

necessarily pass to their children.

There was then no sacerdotal caste, in the true meaning of the word, might also be generals, governors of provinces, architects, or judges. It was the same with the military class ; one man might be both commander of archers and governor of Southern Ethiopia, superintendent of the royal buildings and also commander of foreign mercenaries. Hereditary transmission was not the general law of Egyptian
for priests
society.

Doubtless, the son often did inherit the

in the sacerdotal

office

of the father,

and military classes than in the others; but this occurs in very many other nations, and is far from proving absolute and exclusive inheritance. There was formerly in France a class, the nobles, exclusively devoted to war, and another to the magistracy, and in these classes offices were nearly always transmitted from father but we should not conclude from this that the people of France to son was ever divided into castes. It would therefore be better, as Ampere has done, to translate by " corporation," the Greek word usually rendered caste.
;

and more often

DiOD. Sic. i. 74. t In an essay re-published

at the

end of his Voyage en Egypte.

PRIESTLY AND MILITARY CLASSES.

2.

291

all the classes of Egyptian society tliose of the warriors and were esteemed most honourable. The priests, especially under the later dynasties, formed a sort of privileged nobility in the state. They filled the highest offices, and possessed the largest and best part

Of

priests

of the land.

To

render this property inalienable, they represented

Isis,

it

who, when she was on earth, assigned to them a third part of the kingdom. These estates were free from every tax (Gen. xlvii. 22) they were generally let for a rent, which was paid into the treasury of the temple to which the land belonged, and was employed in the expenses of the worship and on the support of the priests and their numerous subordinates. These, the classical writers say, spent nothing of their own property, each of them received a
;

as the gift of the goddess

portion of the sacred food given them ready cooked ; they even had every day a large quantity of beef and goose flesh ; wine also was given them, but they were not permitted to eat fish.*
to be scrupulously clean in their persons and shave the whole body every other day." says Herodotus, and his account quite agrees with the monuments. "Their

The

priests

were obliged

clothes.

"They

dress
is

is entirely of linen, and their shoes of the papyrus plant ; and it not lawful for them to wear either dress or shoes of any other material.

They bathe twice every day in cold water, and twice each night, besides which they observe, so to speak, thousands of ceremonies." 3. After the sacerdotal class, in order of importance came the nrilitary.

This also enjoyed great privileges.

According

to

Herodotus,

the waiTior class was divided into two bodies, the Calasirians and Hermotybians. They were distributed in the different nomes of Egypt in

The nomes of the Hermotybians were Busiris, Chemmis, Papremis, the island called Prosopitis, and half of Natho: these nomes furnished 160,000 men. The Calasirians occupied the nomes of Thebes, Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytus, Pharbsethus, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anysis, Myecphoris, and Athribis these nomes could, when fully peopled, furnish 250,000 men. We see, by the designation of the different nomes occupied by the warrior class, that the facts collected by Herodotus relate to an epoch
llie

following mannerf

Sais,

when the whole military power of Egypt was concentrated in Lower Egypt. In the interior of the Delta four and a half nomes were then occupied by the Hermotybians, and twelve others by the Calasirians, and they had each of them only one in Upper and Central Egypt, that is Chemmis and Thebes. The corps
posterior to the twenty-first dynasty,

of foreign origin, who had been settled for many generations in the Delta, such as the Mashuash, were probably enrolled in one or other of these lists.

Her.

ii.

37.

f Ibid.

ii.

165, 166.

U 2

292

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

warrior class, like that of the priests, was richly endowed, and

The

possessed nearly a third of the soil; each of them, as Herodotus states,*

had twelve arurse of land (about nine acres) exempt from all taxes. Every year i,ooo men from the Calasirians, and the same number from the Hermotybians, served as the king's guards, and to each of them was given daily five minas of bread (about 6^ lbs.), and two minse of beef (about 2^ lbs.), and four measures (about one quart) of wine. Such was the organisation of the Egyptian army under the last dynasties of the monarchy of the Pliaraohs. For many ages the Egyptians employed chiefly native troops, and among them military service was considered as a privilege and distinction. The foreign auxiliaries then held a very inferior position to the native troops, and it was only after hereditary service for many generations had made them at last (like the Matoi under the Middle Empire and the Mashuash under the New) really Egyptian citizens, that their position was assimilated to that Psammetik disorganised the whole constitution of of Egyptian troops. the army by giving his hired Greek mercenaries precedence over the The soldiers of Egyptian birth saw in this a flagrant native troops. violation of their privileges, and 200,000 warriors deserted the garrison, where the king had designedly placed them, to go off and form a colony beyond the cataracts. From that time the sinews of the Egyptian military power were The Greek and Carian mercenaries, who composed the broken. majority of the Egyptian armies, became rather the instruments of the A feeling of rivalry sprang up king than the defenders of the nation. between them and the rest of the soldiery, and Egypt was given over to Wlien the Persian invasion took place, the intestine strife and anarchy. was defenceless, and one single battle sufficed to render Camcountry byses master of the whole Nile valley.
4.

All the free

population, belonging neither to

the

military nor

sacerdotal class, formed in

Egypt a

sort of third order subdivided into

many

smaller classes not well defined by ancient writers.

lies

In this respect

the chief discrepancy between Herodotus and

divides the people into five classes,

Diodorus Siculus.

The former

On the latter only into three shepherds, husbandmen and artisans. some points it is easy enough to make these conflicting statements agree.
Thus the artisans, tradesmen and interpreters, of whom Herodotus makes three distinct bodies, belonged apparently all to one class, and were only subdivisions the cow-herds, and swine-herds, mentioned by the shepherds. But there the same author, also belong to one class

always remains

this

important

difference

between

Herodotus and

Her.

ii.

168.

HUSBANDMEN, SHEPHERDS, AND SAILORS.

Diodorus, that the latter admits one special class of husbandmen
the former excludes.

293

whom

Heeren believes

that they are included

by Hero-

dotus under the name KaTrrjXoi (tradesmen), and that we must class the husbandmen among the artisans. The nature of the tenure of landed property in Egypt authorises this explanation. In fact, as Diodorus tells us, and the monuments confirm the statement, the whole soil of Egypt was in the hands of the king, the priests, and the warriors, and the husbandmen were only serfs attached to the land, who cultivated, paying a rent, the estates of the privileged classes. They were sold with the

ground, and could not leave the

permission of government.

where they lived without the works pressed on them with all its weight. Their position was very like that of the modern /l//a /is who have no property of their own, and cultivate the land of Egypt for their sovereign.
district

The

forced labour for public

The
cattle

class of

shepherds naturally included

all

who made
lived in

the care of

their principal occupation.

Those who

villages

and

tended large herds of cattle in the interior of the country must not be confounded with the nomad shepherds who wandered near the frontiers.

These were generally hated by the Egyptians,

both
the
state.

This antipathy, as old as the

in the east

and always existing

Moses and Herodotus monarchy, between the inhabitants of cities and

as
earliest times of the

Nomads

or Bedouins, extended also to the foreign settlers in the

of the Delta, most of whom were descended from the Shepherds of Avaris. These tribes had completely adopted Egyptian manners and customs but as they remained barbarians at heart, they were addicted to brigandage, and by their depredations kept alive the old hatred felt towards them by all other people of the

marshes

country.

The

swine-herds,

whom

Herodotus particularly distinguishes from

regarded as unclean.

cow-herds, were looked

down upon and

They
mix

were not only forbidden to have access to the temples, but even to
with other classes.
unclean animal.

The

pig was in Egyptian, as in Jewish eyes, an

Nevertheless, according to ancient custom, an animal

or pilots, must have been

of that species was sacrificed on one of the feasts of Osiris.

The

class of sailors,

composed of men

employed

the navigation of the Nile.

The

inundation, periodically

transforming Egypt into a vast lake, rendered their services indispensable.

Moreover, there were on the Nile, and on the numerous canals intersecting the country, a great

number of

vessels of all kinds,

as

all

merchandise and building materials were transported by water. river was the great, almost the only, road for internal commerce.
venture on

The The

Egyptians regarded the sea as unclean, and had a great disinclination to it, so that it is very doubtful whether they ever had real seawhether,

men among them, and

when

the Pharaohs maintained con-


294

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Meditenanean
aiul

siderable fleets on the

Red

Seas, the ships were ever

Herodotus speaks, were another separate commerce but they seem to have been first organised into a body under the Saite kings, when intercourse with foreigners had assumed a development and an activity unof
class,

manned by any but The interpreters,

Phoenicians.

whom

indispensable to the necessities of

known

to earlier ages.

Section
I.

II.

Political Organisation and Administration.

political constitution of Egypt never varied during the whole enonnous period of the duration of the empire of the Pharaohs. of the The countiy always remained one united monarchy, the most absolute

The

probably that has

dynasties,

ever existed in the world.

Neither changes of

nor the struggles of rival competitors for the throne, ever effected any change. " The Egyptians," says Diodorus Siculus, " respect

and adore

their kings as the equals of the gods.

The

sovereign authority

with which Providence has invested kings, together with the will and the power to confer benefits, seems to them a manifestation of the deity."

This passage of the Greek historian

the facts resulting from the study of the

is

in

complete accordance with

monuments. From the time of the vei-y oldest dynasties, we find that such an unbounded respect for royalty existed, that it was transformed into religious worship, and Pharaoh became the visible god of his subjects. The Egyptian monarchs were more than sovereign pontiffs, they wex^e real deities. The sacerThe epithet " Son of the dotal class depended absolutely upon them.

Sun-God
Pharaoh.

"

is

as

a matter of course attached to the

also styled themselves

name

of each

" the great God, the good God "; they identified themselves with the great deity Horus; for, as one inscription says, "The king is the image of Ra (the Sun-God) among A prince in mounting the throne was, so to speak, transthe living." During his lifetime he attained a figured in the eyes of his subjects. complete apotheosis. And this is why he assumed a symbolical and

They

mysterious

name

at the

time of his coronation.

from the earliest epochs, inscribed

surmounted by a crowned hawk. Lord of Justice, " because from him was believed to emanate all regulahe controlled everything, as the star tions for moral and material order of the day was believed to preside over cosmic phenomena. The divinity of the king, thus commencing on earth, was, in a manner, completed and perpetuated in another life. All the Pharaohs when dead became gods; so, after each reign, the Egyptian pantheon
;

This name is found, among the royal titles on a banner The king was also called " The Sun,

DEIFICATION OF THE KING.

was enriched by a new god.
a series of gods, to

295

The

series of

Pharaohs thus constilutcd

monarch addressed homage and invocations. This gave rise to the monuments where we see Pharaoh addressing prayers to his preiiecessors. The list was so long that, in the inscriptions commemorative of their piety, the kings are obliged to make a selection among the names of these deified princes. This worship of the Pharaohs was so lasting and so devoutly believed in by
the reigning

whom

the people, that

we

find the adoration of the kings of the primitive

age

extends even into the time of the Ptolemies.

These kings had their particular priests, sometimes attached to the altars of two or more monarchs at once. But this was not all. Pharaoh was equally man and god; he, in the opinion of the Egyptians, so completely united the two natures,
that he himself addressed worship to himself.
sent the prince making, in his

Several

monuments

repre-

own name,

offerings to his

own

image.

We
Egypt

may imagine what

to the sovereign

prestige such an exaltation of royalty gave in

That power, so great even among the neighbouring Asiatic nations, became in this country a real idolatry. The Egyptians, in the eyes of the king, were but trembling slaves, compower.
pelled,

even from religious motives, to execute his orders blindly; the

highest and most powerful functionaries were only the

humble servants
in their epitaphs

of Pharaoh.
as their

His most

trifling favours are

mentioned

most

brilliant titles of glory.

One,

for instance,

was permitted

to touch the knees of the king instead of the usual prostration to the

earth before him.

sandals in the king's palace.

regime, to

Another had obtained the privilege of wearing his To accommodate themselves to such a consent to sink so completely their individuality, and to be
people, must have been entirely devoid

only the docile instraments of their master's glory, the Egyptians, like

almost
feeling

all oriental

of that

of independence

and of

personal dignity,
nations, that
first

constituting

the

strength and nobility of

modern

Greeks and Romans. But that this ages, with no sensible modification, proves also that the Egyptians were thoroughly imbued with the idea that their government was an emanation from the Divine will. A lively religious faith, perverted in this dealone have reconciled them to such a servile condition. grading way, could 2. Around this divine king eticjuette must indeed have been rigorous. Not only were all the public acts of the kings regulated by invariable rules, but also those of their private daily lives. On awaking in the morning, the king first received and read dispatches from all parts of Next, the country, so as to know all that was going on in his empire. after having bathed and assumed his insignia of royalty, he offered sacrifice to the gods. The victims were led to the altar, the high priest stood near the king as his assistant, and in the presence of the people he prayed with a loud voice to the gods for the health and well-being of

appeared in the regime could have lasted so many


296
the king.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

At
the

same time he enumerated

his virtues,

piety towards the gods and his goodness to men.

He

spoke of his spoke of him as

in a word, every virtue and all good qualities were attributed to him, and nowhere more than in Egypt was it an established principle that "the king can do no wrong." The popular assemblies to sit in judgment on the deceased king, spoken of by some Greek authors, are all pure fictions. The king when dead was as much a god as when living. If in the series of Egyptian annals we find some kings deprived of burial, and whose names have been effaced from the monuments, it has not been from any popular judgment, but by order of another king who wished to treat a rival as a
;

temperate, magnanimous, tnithful, benevolent

usurper.
3.

The

administration of Egypt, from the most ancient times to that

constituted, with a hierarchy unsurpassed in the

of the Persian conquest, was in the hands of a powerful and numerous

official

body wisely

most
and

bureaucratic countries in the

large class of scribes.
its

modern world, who This administration was

constituted the very

full

of routine,

records were kept in the most precise and methodical way.

Among
reports,

the papyri

we now

possess are a large

number of administrative

and of fragments of registers of public accounts. The departments administered by the most numerous and wellorganised staff were those of public works, war and of the superintendence Coined money was unknown, and all of the revenue of the state. The land was divided under three heads taxes were levied in kind.
according to the nature of
its

contribution to the state.

arable land
(uu)

The

canals

(mau)

paid tithe in

fish;

the

in grain;

and the

marshes (pehu)
various
.sorts

in cattle.

Statistical

records, carefully adapted to all

list

the changes that took place, contained a

of property with the

for each district of all tlie

names of the proprietors. 4. The territory of Egypt Proper was divided, for administrative purposes, into a certain number of districts, called by the Greeks, Names. The chief place of each nome was the sanctuary of some divinity; and
each principal temple formed, with the territory belonging to it, a particular nome, distinguished from the others by its worship and cere-

what Herodotus tells us, and the monuments confirm Under the rule of the Greek Ptolemies, the number of nomes or cantons was thirty-six in Upper Egypt, sixteen in Central and In the time of the Pharaohs, only two regions ten in Lower Egypt. were distinguished. Upper and Lower, and each comprised twenty-two Lists have been found on the walls of some nomes, in all forty-four.
monies.

This

is

his statement.

temples, from which

we have

constructed the following table of the

:

nomes and of

their tutelary deities

NOMES OF EGYPT.
No.

297

298

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

At the hend of each nome was a governor, whom tlie Greeks called "Nomarch. " The whole administration depended on this officer. Under the Nomarchs were other magistrates, subordinate to them, called by the Greeks " Toparchs," who governed smaller districts. A
marked
spirit

of local

jealousy prevailed in these nomes

they had

frequent quarrels with one another, both political and religious, often

giving rise to revolts and sanguinary struggles.

5.

The
;

judicial

organisation was almost independent of the royal

power

the kings themselves only judged cases as a last appeal, but

very rarely, and, as a rule, only in such cases as had some political
bearing.

The common and

regular administration of justice belonged

which were bound strictly to observe the laws. The sacerdotal class furnished the Egyptian magistracy. The great cities of Memphis, Heliopolis, and Thebes, where the most flourishing sacerdotal colleges were situated, supplied most of the judges; ten came from each. The thirty judges chose from amongst them a president, and the place he vacated was filled by another judge from the same city. These magistrates were maintained at the expense of the royal treasury, and the president enjoyed a large income. All business was transacted in writing, never viva voce, in order, it was said, that nothing might excite the feelings of the judge, and thus
to the ordinary tribunals,

prejudice his impartiality.

in

The

plaintiff in civil processes, the prosecutor

was no public prosecutor), presented his complaint in writing, and stated the amount of damage he required, or the extent of punishment he desired to be inflicted on the accused. The defendant, or accused, was informed of the demand, or accusation of the opposite party, and was obliged to make a written defence to each of its heads. The plaintiff might make one rejoinder, and the defendant another reply, and the tribunal was then obliged to pronounce judgment in writing, sealed with the seal of the president. This officer had a gold chain round his neck, from which hung an image of the goddess Ma (Truth and Justice), distinguished by the attribute of the ostrich feather on her head. It was necessary for the president to put on this chain before the sitting could commence. When judgment was pronounced, the president placed this image of truth on one of the parties brought into his presence, and the case was concluded. We possess the proceedings in two Egyptian criminal cases ; the first, tried by a commission specially appointed by the king, is that of the conspirators in the reign of Ramses III. the second, tried by the ordinary tribunals, is that of a band of robbers, who, under Ramses IV., had been organised to plunder the tombs at Thebes. The report of
criminal cases (for there
;

the enquiry into this last case

is

preserved in a papyrus in the British

Museum.
lated, there

Unfortunately,
is

the papyri as yet found and transno original and authentic document with regard to a

among

LAWS OF EGYPT.
civil
trial.

299

special tribunal took cognisance of all cases relating

to religion, such as the practice of magic.

Section
1.

III.

Laws.

The

Egyptian laws were too remarkable to be passed over in

silence.

ment." on this head,

" Egypt," says Bossuet, " was the source of all good governIn fact, however imperfect may be the information we possess
it is

easy to see from ancient writers that Egyptian legisthe best feelings of the

lation respected

all

human mind, and answered

some of these who was
it

the highest wants of social order.

We

are about to review

laws according to the account given by Diodorus Siculus,

thoroughly well informed on

2.

this sulyect.

In the

first

place perjury was punished with death, because

comprises the two greatest crimes that can be committed, one against
the gods and the other against men.

He who saw

in the

road anyone

struggling with an assassin, or subjected to any violence, and did not

If he had that he could to help him, was punished with death. been unable to help, he was obliged to denounce the criminals and accuse them before the tribunals. If he did not do this, he was condemned to receive a given number of blows from a stick, and to be

do

all

really

Those who made false accusations were condemned, when discovered, to undergo the punishment of It was directed that every Egyptian should deposit with calumniators. he the magistrate an account in writing of his means of subsistence who made a false declaration, or who gained his livelihood by unlawful means, was condemned to death.* The wilful murderer, whether a freeman or a slave, was punished with death for the object of the law was to punish according to the crime and intention of the offender, not
kept without food for three days.
; ;

at the same time, the aiTangements according to his station in life with regards to slaves was such as to prevent their being guilty of an
;

offence towards a freeman.

enceinte,

A woman

was not executed

guilty,

until her child

condemned to death while was born as it was thought

;

the height of injustice to

make

the innocent participate in the punish-

ment of the
judges
if

and

to visit the

crime of one person upon two.

The

who

put to death an innocent person, were held as guilty as

they had acquitted a murderer.

Among

the laws regarding soldiers,

he who had deserted

his ranks,

or had not obeyed

the orders of his officers,

If

death, but with infamy.

was punished, not with afterwards he wiped away his shame by

See IIer.

ii.

177.

300
any glorious

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

action,

he was reinstated in his rank. Thus the law made dishonour a punishment more dreadful than death, in order to accustom and at the the soldiers to regard infamy as the greatest of all evils same time those who had been punished in this way were incited
;

to attempt great actions to recover their former position, whilst

if

they

had been put

have been of no more use to the state. A spy, who had betrayed secret plans to the enemy, was conCoiners, makers of false weights demned to have his tongue cut out. and measures, those who made false scales, those who forged documents or falsified public records, were condemned to have both hands
to deatli, they could
off.

cut

The laws with

regard to

women were
a free

very severe.

Whoever

was

convicted of "offering violence to

woman was condemned

to mutilation

crime included three great evils, insult, corrupAdultery without violence tion of inanners, and confusion in families. was punished, in a man by i,ooo blows with a stick, and in a woman by the loss of her nose. The law desired to deprive of her attractions
tliis

for

one
3.

who only employed them in seduction. Some of the civil laws were not less

remarkable.
to

Many

regu-

lations as to

commercial transactions are attributed

King Bokenranf

Thus a debt was null if the debtor affirmed on oath that owe anything to a creditor who was unprovided with a bond. he did not The interest also was not allowed to amount to more than the principal. The property of a debtor could be seized for a debt, but not his person
(Bocchoris).

the law considered

state,

that

the

person of

a citizen

belonged

to

the

peace.

which might at any moment Imprisonment for debt, therefore, was in no case allowed. Herodotus mentions also a very singular law, attributed to Osortasen III.* (Rashakeu-Asychis), permitting an Egyptian to borrow
claim his services, either in
the security of the

war or

money on

mummy

of his father.

The

lender at the

same time entered on possession of the tomb of the borrower. Whoever had not paid his debts was deprived of the honour of burial in the family tomb, and so also were those of his children who died during
the continuance of the arrangement. Numerous contracts for the sale or hire of lands and houses, written on papyrus, have been preserved in the cave -tombs among the family

papers of the deceased.

They show

us with what guarantees, with

what a number of protective

surrounded in ancient Egypt.
*

formalities, the rights of property

were

Her.

ii.

136.


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF EGYPT.
Section IV.
1.

301

Manners and

Custo.ms.
to explain all that the

It would require a lengthened description

monuments have recorded of the customs and private life of the Egyptians. The people were at once commercial, afrricultural, and warlike. The fertile soil of the Nile valley was at all times highly cultivated by and if machinery, properly so called, was at its numerous population all times unknown in Egypt, if the manufacture of articles of daily and general consumption seems to have been conducted by processes as simple as those of their agriculture, objects of luxury luxury both elegant and expensive were largely produced in Egypt. The museums of Europe contain proofs of this fact, too numerous and decisive to leave any doubt on the subject. A great number of workmen were employed The arts of working in metals, of in weaving and dyeing rich stuffs. glass, and of preparing enamel and mastic for making porcelain and
;

mosaics, had, on the banks of the Nile, attained to a high degree of

perfection
;

lastly,

the productions of Egyptian industry were exported

by land and sea

did not

to the

most distant

countries.
all

The

nation, however,

carried on by exchange, or rather by employing ingots of metal, estimating value by weight. Herodotus* remarks two peculiarities in the industrial and commercial customs of the Egyptians, exactly the reverse of those of the Greeks the men worked at the loom and carried on their trades, while the

know

the use of coined

money;

commerce was

women
2.

frequently transacted business.

In general, the character of the Egyptians was mild, their manners

and such as might be expected from a people naturally "There is another obedient, profoundly religious, and early civilised. custom," says Herodotus,t "in which the Egyptians resemble a particular Greek people, namely, the Lacedemonians; their young men, when they meet their elders in the street, give way to them and step aside and if an elder come in where young men are present, these
polished,
;

latter rise
all

from their

seats.

In a third point, they

differ entirely

from

the nations of Greece.

Instead of speaking to each other

when
to

they part in the streets, they

the knee."

make an

obeisance, dropping the

hand

The same author

also says,

and the study of the monuments com-

pletely confirms his testimony,

"The

Egyptians

are, I believe,
.

next to
are

the Lybians, the healthiest people in the world.

They

persuaded that every disease to which

substances
spelt.
.
.

men are liable is caused by the They live on bread made of whereon they feed. Many Their drink is beer made from barley.
. . .
. .

Her.

ii.

135.

Ibid.

ii.

80.


302
kinds of
also,
fish

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

they eat raw, either salted or dried in the sun.
tliey
fishes,

Quails,
salting

ducks, and small birds All other

biixls

eat uncooked, merely

first

them.

and

excepting those which are set apart

as sacred, are eaten either roasted or boiled."*

"They wear a

linen tunic fringed about the legs,

and called

calash'is

over this they have a white woollen garment, thrown on afterwards.

Nothing of woollen, however, is taken with them, as their religion forbids it."t
3.

into their temples,

or buried

"In

social

meetings
is

"when

the banquet

among the rich," Herodotus also states, J ended, a servant carries round to the several
is

guests a coffin, in which there

wooden image of a

corpse, carved

and painted to resemble nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest in turn, the servant Gaze here, and drink and be merry for when you die, such you says,
'
;

will be.'

"
is

"Medicine

practised

among them on

a plan of separation; each

physician treats a single disorder, and no more: thus the country swarms

with medical practitioners, some undertaking to cure diseases of the eye,

others of the head, others again of the teeth, others of the intestines,

and some those which are not

Care

local.

"
it

for the body, the desire to guard

after death

from

all

chance
the

of destruction, was again a subject of serious consideration

among

Egyptians.

their religious ideas of the destiny of the soul after death.

Thence arose the custom of embalming, growing out of It was

all injury,

necessary that the body should be preserved from

corruption, so that the soul might find
rection.
it

from

all

uninjured on the day of resur-

Hence

the

infinite

precautions for the preservation of the

corpses

hence the enormous quantity of mummies now in our museums,

The
curious description of the _prodiffering according to the rank

and found in all parts of Egypt. cesses employed in embalming,

fortune of the deceased,

and

maybe

read in Herodotus,

Book

II. 86, 87, 88.

Section V.
I.

Writing.
is,

The

Greeks gave the name of Hieroglyphics, that

"Sacred
this

Sculpture," to the national writing of the Egyptians, composed entirely

of pictures of natural objects.

Although very inapplicable,

name

has been adopted by modern writers, and has been so completely accepted and used, that it cannot now be replaced by a more appropriate
appellation.

Egypt, attempted
*

Neither the Greeks nor the Romans, whilst masters of in any way to learn the method of reading this

Her.

ii.

77.

Ibid.

ii.

81.

J Ibid.

ii.

78.

Ibid.

ii.

84.

HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING.
writing.
It

303
the

appeared to them an unattainable

still

secret, althougli
it.

natives under their authority

continued to use

of ages the decipherment of the hieroglyphics, for

writers furnish

For a long series which the classical

no assistance, remained a hopeless mystery. The acute Frenchman at last succeeded, not fifty years since, in lifting the veil. By a prodigious effort of induction, and almost divination, Jean Francois Champollion, who was bom at Figeac (Lot), on the
genius of a

23rd of December, 1790, and died at Paris on the 4th of March, 1832, made the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century in the domain of
histoi-ical science,

and succeeded

in

fixing

on a

solid basis the prin-

ciple of reading hieroglyphics.

path opened by him; the are, in France, C. Lenormaut. Ampere, de Rouge, Mariette, and Chabas ; in Germany, Dr. Lepsius and Dr. Brugsch in England, Dr. Birch. By their profound
;

Numerous chief of them

scholars have followed the

and persevering studies the discovery of Champollion has been completed and perfected, and its results have been extended. It can now no longer be doubted by any one that the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt may be translated with almost as much certainty as the works of any classic author. 2. In our present state of knowledge it cannot now be maintained that, as for a long time was believed, the hieroglyphics were a mysterious system of writing, reserved exclusively for the priests,

who

alone

were

in possession of the key.

Hieroglyphic writing

is

found every-

where, on the public monuments and on articles of domestic use, in

and in the praises of the kings, intended for the greatest publicity and destined to last to remotest posterity, as well as in the explanations of the most subtle doctrines of the Egyptian religion. It would also be very far from the truth to regard hieroglyphics as always, or even generally, symbolical. No doubt there are symbolical
historical narratives

characters

among them,

and

in very gi-eat

generally easy to understand as also there are, number, figurative characters directly representing the
;

object to be designated; but the majority of the signs found in every

hieroglyphic text are characters purely phonetic, that

either syllables (and these are so varied as to offer
difficulties) or the letters

is,

representing

sometimes serious of an only moderately complicated alphabet.

These letters are also pictures of objects, but of objects or animals whose Egyptian name commenced with the letter in question, while also
the syllabic characters (true rebusses) represented objects designated by
that syllable.
structing the
It is in this way that Champollion succeeded in reconwhole system of the Egyptian writing and language, from the moment that the comparison of the royal names (pointed out by a

frame, carlouch, or ring) in texts with a Greek translation, like the

famous Rosetta

inscription, permitted

him

to take the first step towards

deciphering the alphabet, assisted afterwards by the Coptic, a language


304

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

.still

derived from, and

very imich resembling, the ancient Egyptian,

to our days to

and which has continued the Egyptian Christians.

3.

be the liturgical language of

The

following table contains a selection of the most

:

commonly

used alphabetical characters from hieroglyphic texts

Phonetic

Power

or

Sound.


IDEOGRAPHIC SIGNS.
written

305
signs,

minus; such especially are our numerical figures, conveying the same idea to all European nations, quite independently of the pronunciation, for each nation calls the symbol by a different name. Thus, as we have already said, these ideographic signs are of two sorts, figurative and symbolical. The first are pictures of the object itself desired to be expressed, and have no other meaning when so employed, as may be seen in the following examples
:

alphabetically.

Such

are

our

Algebraic

plus,

'"^^ Moon.


3o6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

IV. By enigma, hy employing the picture of some physical object having only a very obscure, very distant, and often entirely convenBy this inevitably very tional connection with the idea to be expressed. vague method an ostricli feather signified justice, because the feathers
all of equal length a palm branch was supposed that the jialm every year put forth twelve branches, one in each month; a basket woven from reeds conveyed the ideas of Lord and all, and the urteus serpent was equally royalty and divijiity.

of that bird were supposed to be

\\\q.

represented

year, because

it

Lord, All.

To

build.

Son.

Month.

^K ^^ To
To

h
I
Justice, Tnith.

God, Kine.

Fire.
see.

T
1

Night,
ness.

Dark-

write.

Mother.

Year.

God.

There is a third and very important class of hieroglyphics, called "Determinatives," as they determine the nature of the idea conveyed
by a word written in phonetic characters, and occasionally the pronunciation of the word, In the ancient Egyptian language, as in most others, there were many words of the same sound, but with very different meanings; and to these words the determinative sign is added to distinguish the sense in which the word is used; for instance, the word af may mea.n food, end, or viper; and so, whenever the word is employed, the proper determinative is added to define the meaning. Names of objects of wood and metal are distinguished by determinatives; names of places in Egypt are marked by a sign, usually called a " cake," but which would appear to be a "cross-staff," or surveying instrument, peculiarly characteristic of Egypt, where re-surveys of property were needed after each inundation. It is remarkable that a determinative sign, evidently originally the same figure, was employed in cuneiform writing to distinguish names of towns and districts in Assyria, Babylonia, Chaldsea, and Susiania, exclusively. Names of foreign places also are distinguished by a representation of "hills," the peculiar feature of foreign lands, as compared with the dead level of the Nile valley. These signs may be divided into two classes
:

a.

Special determinatives, the figure of the object, or the symbol of

one particular idea.

DETERMINATIVE
b.

SIGNS.
number

307
of words, or a

Generic determinatives, applying to a large

large class of ideas.

The

first

class

it

would seem

difficult to

separate from ideographics

is,

the principle of the classification of these signs

that every deter;

minative

is

applicable to

more than one word

or idea

the ideographic

to one only.

is

fixed

In some cases, also, the pronimciation of a word or part of a word by adding to it the representation of an object in ordinary use,
in these cases the signs are

and with a well-known name; and

used in such a

always

way

as to prevent their being understood to refer to the

meaning
in the

in place of the sound.

The most
is

apposite instance

is

perhaps

name

of the foreign god Set (introduced by the Shepherds into

;

the Egyptian pantheon)

the

name

spelt

with the phonetic signs for

ST, and the

figure of a block of stone (in

Egyptian

Set) is

added

to fix

the pronunciation.

Names
tries.

of Foreign Coun-

Names

of Animals.

r
il

Names

of Places in Eg)-pt.

Evil or hurtful actions.

Encloses Royal Names.

Names
I

f
more

Articles of Clothing.

of Enemies.
in

O YYY

Articles of Metal.
Disaster, storm, confusion.

^J"^ Objects
5.

Wood.

TTr

Besides hieroglyphics, properly so called, the nature of which we have been endeavouring to explain, the Egyptians used a cursive character, called by the Greeks, though inappropriately, the Hieratic.

The
In

characters are abbreviated, and

or less altered hieroglyphics.

books on papyrus that we now possess are written, as well as the records of accounts and contracts of the Lastly, in the seventh century B.C. eighteenth and nineteenth dynasty. (at any rate we do not know an earlier example), a still more abridged Although no style came into use, named by the Greeks Demotic.
this character nearly all the

trace whatever of the primitive pictures can be recognised, this system

of writing

still

contains the same mixture of phonetic and ideographic

characters as the hieroglyphics.

Section
I.

VL Literature and

Science.

The productions
;

of Egyptian literature were both numerous and

In often speak of the books of Egypt. Karnak, the hall of the library has been found, placed under the protection of Thoth, the god of science, and of the goddess X 2
celebrated
classical authors
at

the

Ramesseum

3o8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Unfortunately

Saf, patroness of literature.

we now

possess but

little

of that rich literature, considered worthy of consultation by

the ijreatest geniuses of the ancient Greel^s
;

some of

but from what we have as and read of manuscripts on papyrus, we may form some idea of the variety of the sul)jects treated of in the Egyptian
yet been able to discover

books.
2.

The

first

rank belongs to religious books, and especially to the one

of which

we

possess most copies

to that great sacred book, containing

the complete explanation of the belief of the Egyptians as to the destiny

of the soul after death,

festation to Light."

called

by
this,

modem
title

scholars the

"Funereal

Ritual," but in reality bearing the

of

"The Book

of the Mani-

more or less complete according was deposited in the case of every mummy. The book was revised under the twenty-sixth dynasty, and But many parts of it are of the then assumed its final definite form. highest antiquity. Some chapters are spoken of as composed luider King Hesepti, of the first dynasty, and others as dating from the reign of Menkera (fourth dynasty), and very many chapters of the Ritual are found on monuments long anterior to the invasion of the Shepherds.
copy of
to the fortune of the deceased,

The whole

series of pilgrimages wliich the soul, separated

from the

body, was believed to accomplish in the various divisions of the lower

regions, are related in this

book

it

also contains the

hymns, prayers,

and fonnula
of the dead.
basis of
it,

for all

ceremonies relative to funerals and to the worship

doctrine of the immortality of the soul forms the
its

The

although the idea of

personality,

as distinct from the

body,

is

not clearly defined.

The

reader will no doubt be interested by a short analysis of a book

religious

holding so important a place in the literature of Egypt, and containing

the principal philosophical opinions and
doctrines

of

the

Pharaonic
3.

civilisation.

the very

(Ch.

The Funereal Ritual opens by a grand dialogue taking place at moment of death, when the soul separates from the body The deceased, addressing the deity of Hades, enumerates all i. ).
and asks
for

his titles to his favour,

admittance into his dominions.

The

chorus of glorified souls interposes, as in the Greek tragedy, and

supports the prayer of the deceased.

The

priest

on earth

in his turn

speaks, and implores also the divine clemency.

Finally Osiris, the

of the lower regions, answers the deceased, " Fear nothing in

god making
give

thy prayer to

me

for the immortality of thy soul,

and that

may

Reassured by the divine word, the soul of the deceased enters Kar-Neter, the land of the dead,
permission for thee to pass the threshold. "

and recommences his invocations. After this grand commencement, \\hich we have epitomised, come

many

short chapters (Ch.

ii.

xiv.),

much

less

important, relative also


THE FUNEREAL RITUAL.
to the dead
last the soul

309

and

to the

prehminary ceremonies of

his funeral.

When

at

of the deceased has passed the gates of Kar-Neter (Ch. xv.),

he penetrates into that subterranean region, and at his entry is dazzled by the glory of tlie sun, which he now for the first time sees in this lower hemisphere. He sings a hymn to tlie sun under the foiTn of mixed
litanies

and invocations. After tliis hymn, a great vignette, representing the adoration and glorification of the sun in the heavens, on earth, and in hades, marks the end of the first part of the Ritual, serving as a sort of introduction. The second part traces the journeys and migrations of
the soul in the lower region.
his

"The

Egyptians, " says Horapollo, in

sbo^ that is,
'

" Hieroglyphics," "call knowledge

food in plenty.'

"

This passage certainly contains an allusion to the religious ideas as to

the destiny of the dead.

on every page of the Ritual.

journeys and
trials.

Knowledge and food are, in fact, identified The knowledge of religious truths is the
it

mysterious nourishment the soul must carry with

to sustain

it

in its

soul not possessing

tliis

knowledge could never

its journey, and would be rejected at the tribunal of was therefore necessary, before commencing the journey, to be furnished with a stock of this divine provision. To this end is destined the long chapter at the commencement of the second part (Ch. xvii., "The Egyptian Faith"). It is accompanied by a large vignette, representing a series of the most sacred symbols of the

reach the end of

Osiris.
It

Egyptian

religion.

The

text contains a description of these symbols,

with their mystical explanation.

At the beginning of the chapter,

it
;

tlie

descriptions and explanations are sufficiently clear, but as

advances

we we

end of the chapter happens in such cases, the explanation ends by being more obscure than the symbols and expressions explained.* Next come a series of prayers to be pronounced
get into a higher and
at the

more obscure region

lose the clue almost entirely, and, as often

* There is a remarkable peculiarity in this chapter, first pointed out by Baron Bunsen. The original text is, after every sentence, followed by a commentar)', explanation, or gloss, prefaced in every case by a group of characters in red, meaning " The explanation is this," or " Let him explain it." From this necessarily arises, first, that the text had by a certain time become so unintelligible as to require an explanation second, that the explanation itself had in its turn become unintelligible; and finally, that the text and gloss, equally obscure, had been jumbled together and written out as one continuous document. The enormous len^jth of time indicated by these several steps can hardly be estimated, and we know that they had all occurred before the time
;

of the eleventh dynasty, as the text of this on a coffin of that period exactly in the papyrus. See Bunsen's Egypt, 2nd ed., pp. 89, 90; and Dr. Birch's Translation book. Tk.

seventeenth chapter is found same state as in the Turin English translation, vol. v.,

of the Ritual, in the same

3IO

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

These invocations are addressed
as to Thoth, the

during the process of embalming, whilst the body was being rolled in
its

wrappers.

Egyptian

Hennes, who,
allusion
is

among

the Greeks, played the part of Psychopompe,

or conductor of souls.

They

are of the highest interest, for in each

myth of Osiris and his contest with Typhon, of which Plutarch and Synesius have given us the most recent The deceased, addressing the god, asks him to render to him versions. again the service he once rendered on that solemn occasion to Osiris and his son Horus, "avenger of his father." The body once wrapped in its coverings, and the soul well provided with a store of necessaiy knowledge, the deceased commences his

made

to the grand

journey.

But he
it is

is still

unable to

move

he has not yet the use of his

limbs

necessary to address the gods,

life,

who

successively restore all

the faculties he had during his

so that he can stand upright, walk,

speak, eat, and fight (Ch. xxi. to xxix.

" The
he holds

reconstruction of the
his scarabcEUS over his

deceased

").

Thus prepared, he
first

starts

heart as a passport, and thus passes the portal of

Hades (Ch.

xxx.).

From

the

step, terrible obstacles present themselves in his

way.

Typhon, crocodiles on land and in the water, serpents of all kinds, tortoises and other reptiles, assail the deceased and attempt to devour him. Then commences a series of combats (Ch. xxxi. to xli.). The deceased and the animals against which he contends, mutually address insulting speeches to each other, Finally, the " Osiris " (the name after the fashion of Homer's heroes.
Frightful monsters, servants of

applied to

all

the deceased, as
all

we

shall explain in the succeeding para;

he has subdued the Typhonic monsters and forced a passage, and, elated by his victory, sings on the spot a song of triumph (Ch. xlii.), likening himself to all the gods, whose members are made those of his own body. " My hair is like
graph) has conquered
his enemies

that of

Nu

(the firmament)

my

face

is

like that of
;"

Ra

(the sun)
for

my

eyes like those of Athor (the Egyptian Venus)

part of his body.
for the strife

and so on

eveiy

in reality

He has even the strength of Set, that is, of Typhon, between the good and evil principle is but in appearance ; they are one and the same, and equally receive the adorations
;

of the initiated.

After such labours the deceased needs rest

recruit his strength

he stays
xliii.

for

a time to
Ivi.).

and

to satisfy his

hunger (Ch.
li.

to

He
the

has escaped great dangers, and has not gone astray in the desert, where

he would have died of hunger and

tree of
life,

thirst (Ch.

liii.).

From

the goddess

Nu

gives to

vigorate

him and enable him

first

him refreshing waters, Avhich inrecommence his journey in order to

reach the
cation

gate of heaven (Ch.

divine
Light,

lix.).

Then commences
of the

a dialogue between the deceased and the personifi-

who

instructs

him (Ch.

Ixiv.).

This

THE FUNEREAL RITUAL.

fixed to the

311

dialogue presents most remarkable resemblances to the dialogue, pre-

books given by the Alexandrian Greeks as translations

tlie

of the ancient religious %vritings of Egypt, between Thoth and

Light, the latter explaining to

Thoth

the most sublime mysteries of

Nature.
Ritual,

This portion is certainly one of the best and grandest of the and may almost be classed with the invocations to the sun
first

at the close of the

part.

The
by
this
).

deceased, having passed the gate, continues to advance, guided

new

Light, to

whom

he addresses his invocations (Ch.

Ixv. to

Ixxv.

He

then enters on a series of transfomiations, more and more

and identifying himself with the noblest changed successively into a hawk (Ch. Ixxvii., Ixxviii.), an angel or divine messenger (Ch. Ixxix., Ixxx. ); into a lotus (Ch. Ixxxi.); into the god Ptah (Ch. Ixxxii. ); into a heron (Ch. Ixxxiii.); into a crane (Ch. Ixxxiv.); into a human-headed bird (Ch. Ixxxv.), the usual emblem of the soul; into a swallow (Ch. Ixxxvi.); into a serpent (Ch. Ixxxvii.); and into a crocodile (Ch. Ixxxviii.). Up to this time the soul of the deceased has been making its journeys alone ; it has been merely a sort of hSujXop {eidoloii), if we may be permitted to employ this untranslatable Greek phrase that is, an image, a shade, with the appearance of that body now stretched on the bier. After these transformations the soul becomes re-united to It was on this its body, which is needed for the rest of the journey. account that careful embalming was so important ; it was necessary " Oh," that the soul should find the body perfect and well preserved. cries the body, "that in the dwelling of the master of life I may be re-united to my glorified soul, do not order the guardians of heaven to destroy me, so as to send away my soul from my corpse, and " hinder the eye of Horus, who is with thee, from preparing my way
elevated, assuming the form of

divine symbols.

He

is

(Ch. Ixxxix.).

The deceased
knowledge he
is

traverses the dwelling of Thoth,

who

gives

him

book

containing instructions for the rest of his way, and fresh lessons of the

soon to require (Ch. xc).

He

arrives

on the banks of

the subterranean river separating him from the Elysian Fields, but false boatman, the envoy of the there a new danger awaits him.

Typhonic powers, lays wait for him on his way, and endeavours by deceitful words to get him into his boat, so as to mislead him and take

him

to the east instead of to the to land

west (Ch.

xciii.),

his true destination,

The rejoin the sun of the lower world. new danger he unmasks the perfidy of the false boatman, and drives him away, overwhelming him with reproaches. He at last meets the right boat to conduct him to his destination (Ch.
and where he ought and
deceased again escapes this
;

xcvii., xcviii.).

But

Ijefore getting into

it,

it is

necessary to ascertain

if

he

is

really capable of

making the voyage,

if

he possesses a

sufficient

312

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

amount of the knowledge necessary to his safety. The divine boatman therefore makes him undergo an examination, a preliminary initiation,

The seemingly corresponding to the lesser Eleusinian mysteries. deceased passes the examination, each part of the boat then seems
him its name, and anchoring the boat. IVw for Tell me my name "The Lord of the earth in thy case " is thy name. The rudder. Tell me my name "The enemy of Apis " is thy name. The rope. Tell me my name "The hair with which Anubis binds uf) the folds of the wrappers " is thy name ; and so on for twenty-three questions and answers (Ch. xcix.). After having thus victoriously passed through this trial, the deceased embarks, traverses the subterranean river, and lands on the other bank, when he soon arrives at the Elysian Fields in the valley of Aoura or Balot (Aahlu or Bat), the position of which the ritual gives in these terms, " The valley of Balot (abundance), at the east of heaven, is 370
successively to

become animated, and

!

to

demand
stake

of

the mystical meaning of the name.

cubits long

and 140 cubits broad.

There

is

a crocodile lord of Balot in

the east of that valley in his divine dwelling above the enclosure

There is a serpent at the head of that valley thirty cubits body six cubits round. In the south is the lake of sacred principles (Sham) the north is formed by the lake of Primordial Matter (Rubu) (Ch. cix.). A large picture here shows us this valley (Ch. ex.), a real subterranean Egypt, intersected by canals, where we see the " Osiris " occupied in all the operations of agriculture ; pre(Ch.
cviii. ).

long, his

paring the ground, sowing and reaping in the divine

provision of that bread of knowledge he
is

fields

now

to find

an ample more necessary

;

than ever.
before

He

has, in fact, arrived at the end of his journey

he has

but also the most Conducted by Anubis (Ch. cxiii. to cxxi.), he traverses the labyrinth, and by the aid of the clue, guiding them through its windings, at last penetrates to the judgment-hall where Osiris awaits him seated on his throne, and assisted by forty-two terrible assessors. There the decisive sentence is to be pronounced, either admitting the deceased to happiness, or excluding him for ever (Ch. cxxv. ). Then commences a new interrogatory much more solemn than the former. The deceased is obliged to give proof of his knowledge he must show that it is great enough to give him the right to be admitted to share the lot of glorified spirits. Each of the forty-two judges, bearing a mystical name, questions him in turn he is obliged to tell each one his name, and what it means. Nor is this all he is obliged to give an account of his whole life. This is certainly one of the most curious parts of the Funereal Ritual; Champollion called it the "Negative Confession ;" it would perhaps be better described by the word "Apology." The deceased addresses successively each of his judges, and declares for his
the
last,

him only

terrible of all his trials.

; ;

THE FUNEREAL RITUAL.

justification

313

We that he has not committed such and such a crime. have therefore here all the laws of the Egyptian conscience. " I have not blasphemed," says the deceased ; "I have not stolen
I

have not treated any person with I have I have not been idle craelty 1 have not stirred up trouble I have not been intoxicated I have not made unjust commandments shown no improper curiosity I have not allowed my mouth to tell secrets ; I have not wounded anyone ; I have not put anyone in fear ;
])rivily
;

have not smitten men

;

have not slandered anyone ; I have not let envy gnaw my heart I have not I have spoken evil, neither of the king, nor my father falsely accused anyone I have not withheld milk from the mouths ol I have not sucklings I have not practised any shameful crime
I
; ; ; ;

calumniated a slave to his master." The deceased does not confine himself to denying any

ill

conduct
to the

he speaks of the good he has done in his to the gods the offerings that were their due.
hungry, drink
to the thirsty,

lifetime.

"I have made

have given food

and clothes

to the

naked. "

We may well be

astounded on reading these passages,

that of all other ancient people,

at this

high morality, superior to

to build

doubt

it

had been able up on such a foundation as that of their religion. Without was this clear insight into truth, this tenderness of conscience,
that the Egyptians

which obtained for the Egyptians the reputation for wisdom, echoed even by Holy Scripture (i Kings iv. 30 Acts vii. 27).
;

Besides these general precepts, the apology acquaints us with some

police regulations for public order, raised
to the rank of conscientious duties.

by common

interest in

Egypt

Thus

the deceased denies ever

having intercepted the irrigating canals, or having prevented the dishe declares that tribution of the waters of the river over the country he has never damaged the stones for mooring vessels on the river. Crimes against rehgion also are mentioned some seem very strange to
;
;

us, especially

when we

find

them

classed with really moral faults.

The

deceased has never altered the prayers, nor interpolated them.

or fished for the sacred fish in the lakes of the temples

He

has never touched any of the sacred property, such as flocks and herds,
;

he has not
in the

stolen offerings from the altar, nor defiled the sacred waters of the Nile.

The

Osiris

is

now

fully justified

his heart has

been weighed

balance with "truth," and not been found wanting; the forty-two

pronounced that he possesses the necessary knowledge. The great Osiris pronounces his sentence, and Thoth, as recorder to the triljunal, having inscribed it in his book, the deceased at last enters
assessors have

into bliss.

Here commences the

obscure than the others.

third part

of the Ritual,

more mystical and

We

see the Osiris, henceforth identified with

the sun, traversing with him, and as him, the various houses of heaven


314

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

fire,

and the lake of

the

somxe of all

light.

Afterwards the Ritual

rises

to a higher poetical flight, even contemplating the identiiication of the

deities of the

deceased with a symbolical figure comprising all the attributes of the Egyptian pantheon. This representation ends the work.*

4. Precisely the same doctrine, as in the Funereal Ritual, though in a much more abridged form, is found in the " Book of Transmigrations," a very short work sometimes deposited in sepulchres of not very

remote antiquity.t We possess also some copies of a book consisting almost entirely of pictures with but little text, on the course of the sun in the lower world, and numerous fragments of collections of hymns, sometimes in the highest style of poetry. All this knowledge of men and of the world, all these ideas of another life, had been communicated to the Egyptians, as the priests said, by

* In this translation the numbers of the chapters are given for conEgypt," venience of reference from Dr. Birch's translation in Bunsen's
' '

Second Edition, vol. v. It need hardly be pointed out that the origin of the belief in the doctrine of Metempsychosis is probably to be found in the chapters of the Ritual on the transformations of the soul (Ch. Ixxvi. to Ixxxviii.). This seems very clear (as M. Lenormant has pointed out) from the representation of the soul of the glutton changed into a pig, to be found See also " The Alabaster Sarcophagus of Oimenepin many vignettes. thah (Seti), king of Egypt, drawn by Joseph Bonomi, and described by Samuel Sharpe." London, 1864. Some passages in the " Ritual " also furnish a probable explanation of a passage in Herodotus, which has puzzled most commentators. In the rubric to Chapter i., it is said, "Let this book be known on earth ; It is the Chapter by which he it is made in writing on the coffin. comes out every day as he wishes, and he goes to his house. He is not Then are given to him food and drink, slices of flesh off turned back. the altar of the sun," etc. (Dr. Birch's translation), and this is repeated with a slight variation in the rubric to Chap. Ixxii. Herodotus (Book iii. 17, 18) says that Cambyses sent spies into Ethiopia charged especially to observe whether there was really in Ethiopia what was called the "table of the sun;" and this he describes (according to the accounts given to him) as " a meadow in the skirts of the city full of the boiled flesh of all manner of beasts, which the magistrates are careful to store with meat every night, and where, whoever likes, may come and

The people of the land say that the earth itself eat during the day. The same story is repeated by other classical brings forth the food." Heeren writers, and many attempts have been made to explain it. (" African Nations," Chap, i., p. 333) supposes it to be a I'eference to the dumb trading very common on the African coast ; but it seems very probable that the tale, as related by Herodotus, is derived from this altar of the sun, from which the "Osiris" was supplied with food
in

Hades.

Tr.
Sinsi7i, sive liber

t Translated by Dr. Brugsch, Sai an

chosis."

Metempsy-

Berlin, 1831.

LITERARY REMAINS.

315

Thoth, the first Hermes Trismegistus, or " thrice greatest," who wrote The first Thoth was all these books by the order of the supreme God.
the celestial Hermes, or the personification of the divine intelligence.

The second Hermes, who was

only an imitation of the

first,
it

passed for

the author of all the social institutions of Egypt. organised the Egyptian nation, established religion, regulated the cere-

He

was who had

monies of public worship, and taught men the sciences of astronomy, numbers, geometry, the use of weights and measures, language and This writing, the fine arts, and, in short, all the arts of civilisation.

knowledge had been included in the sacred books to the number of forty- two, and the Egyptian priests, w-ho had the custody of them, were
obliged to

know

their contents wholly, or

part, according to the

It seems most probable that the Funereal Ritual was one of these Hermetic books. As Osiris was the prototype of kings, so Thoth, or Hermes, was the type of the priests, the minister of science and religion. He

nature of their functions, and their rank in the hierarchy.

personified

all

discoveries

made by
;

the

members
is,

of the sacerdotal class,

of which he was at once the founder and the representative.

fact,

was the learned

class itself

that

according to

Thoth, in Egyptian ideas,

the personification of science.

5. We have already given an analysis of the epic poem of Pentaour, on the exploit of Ramses II. against the Khitas, and quoted a fragment We have also menof a chronicle of the expulsion of the Shepherds. tioned the existence at Turin of a papyrus, containing a complete list of

the kings, with the duration of their reigns.

History

sometimes
Egypt.

in

the form of a poem, sometimes in that of a chronicle, or chronological

abstract

formed a great part of the

I.,

literature of ancient

Un-

fortunately,

we have but very few examples. The Museum of Turin possesses a fragment
chiefly in the British

of a geographical chart
collections of the

of the time of Seti

containing the region of the Nubian gold mines.

Other papyri,

Museum, contain

models of style, and in more than one place interesting to the historian. We have also collections analogous to the orations of the Greek or Latin of literary exercises, rhetoricians. As a specimen of this style we quote a fragment on the fatigues of the profession of arms, written in the time of the gi'eat wars of the nineteenth dynasty, and arranged in parallel lines in Biblical
letters of celebrated writers, preserved as

style:

you receive the verses I have written, may you find the work of the scribe agreeable. I wish to depict to you the numberless troubles of an unfortunate officer of infantiy. While still quite a youth he is entirely shut up in a barrack, tight suit of armour encases his body, the peak of his helmet comes over his eyes

"

When

3i6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

visor
is is

The

over his eyebrows; so

roll,

tliat

his

head

is

protected from
his liml)s

wounds.

He

wrapped up hke a papyrus

and can hardly move

in fight.

Shall I tell you of his expeditions into Syria, his marches in far distant lands? He is obliged to carry water on his shoulder, as an ass bears its burden His back is bent like that of a beast of burden, his back bone is bowed. When he has quenched his thirst with a drink of bad water, he is obliged to mount guard for the night. If 'he meets the enemy he is like a bird in a net, his limbs have no strength left. When he returns to Egypt, he is like a piece of worm-eaten wood. If he is too ill to stand, they put him on the back of an ass; His baggage is plundered by robbers, and his servant deserts him."

What we

should least expect to find

among

the literature of grave

and solemn Egypt are works of pure imagination, romances. There are, however, some, and M. de Rouge has translated the more important of those as yet discovered by us. These romances are, however, all of an essentially religious character, for Pagan religions have invariably We chosen to teach their doctrines in the form of stories or fables. might quote many and very curious examples in the stories preserved

by popular

to our days, commencing with that of modernised by the pen of Perrault, and in its Cinderella, so admirably old form preserved by Lucian, one of the myths of Asiatic religions. 6. Scientific literature, if we may judge by what classical writers have said, was largely developed in Egypt. We have a few specimens.

tradition

down

at Berlin,* give

on medicine, one of which is preserved in the museum an idea of the very low state of this science in the Pharaonic civilisation. It consisted entirely in the employment of
treatises

Two

purely empirical prescriptions, often the strangest that can be imagined.

There are, however, traces of a somewhat extensive acquaintance with symptoms, and a certain amount of knowledge of the anatomy of the human body; but the theories show most fantastic ideas on
physiology.

papyrus, recently acquired by the British

Museum,

contains a

dozen theorems of a treatise on practical geometry, extending beyond The the essential and elementary problems of plane trigonometry.
Egyptians had a really
scientific

knowledge of astronomy

from the

remotest antiquity they used a year of 365 days, and in later times invented a very ingenious astronomical period, to make this vague year

accord from time to time with the real fixed year of 365I: days.t
* See

But

1853.

Brugsch, Etudes sur ztn Papyrus Medical de Berlin, Leipzig, Chabas, Melanges Egyptologiqiies, vol. i.
to

t See note

page 268.

RELIGION OF EGYPT.

317

they had not advanced beyond what a patient and attentive observation

with the naked eye alone could achieve, insufficient even under the clearest

sky to permit the precise moment of the occurrence of every phenomenon

to be noted.

Instruments they had none.

of designating the constellations was different from ours.

in the latter days of their history that they

Moreover, their method It was only

borrowed the zodiac from

the Greeks

thus the interpretation

of the astronomical
difficult,

monuments
and only
in

belonging to Pharaonic ages becomes exceedingly

a very few cases have the names of stars been identified with those

known by

us.

Dr. Brugsch, however, has translated a catalogue of

is

planetary observations, the precise date of which

unknown.

The Egyptians believed in astrology, and reckoned this fallacious A papyrus in the British Museum has superstition among the sciences.
been found to contain fragments of an astrological calendar, compiled under the nineteenth dynasty, and containing for each day a list of things not to be done, because of the adverse influence of the stars.

Section VII.

Religion,

HERODOTtJs,* when he visited Egypt, was struck with the exI. treme devotion of the people, and represents them as the most religious of mankind, and surpassing all other people in the reverence they pay the gods. Without speaking of those pompous sacred ceremonies, producing such an effect on strangersof those magnificent fetes where
the naos, or ark of the deity, was carried in procession with their consecrated vessels, fetes without number, a calendar of which was often
inscribed on the porch of the temple
tuaries,

without

recalling the vast sanc-

and decorations covered the walls in profusion everywhere on the banks of the Nile one was in the immediate presence of a religious sentiment. All Egypt bore the impress of religion its writing was full of sacred symbols and of allusions to sacred myths, so that its use beyond the influence of Egyptian religion became, as it were, impossible. Literature and science were but branches of theology. The fine arts were only employed with a view to religion and the glorification of the gods or deified kings. The prescriptions of religion were so multiplied, so constantly repeated, that it was not possible to exercise a profession to provide for one's subsistence, or to satisfy one's commonest wants without being constantly reminded of the laws laid down by the priests. Each province had its special gods, its peculiar rites, its sacred animals. It seems that the priestly element had presided even over the distribution
bas-reliefs, paintings,

where

Her.

ii.

37.

3l8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

of the country into nomes, and that these had originally been ecclesiastical districts.
2.

The

Christian religion has not feared to reveal itself to

its

'spite of the profundity of

doctrines,

it

is

open

to great
it

all, and in and small,

ignorant and learned

the whole

because, being eternal truth,

is

addressed to

was not the case with the false Whatever in them was most elevated and most religions of antiquity. philosophical, always remained hidden in the sanctuary, for the honour In Egypt, and profit of the priests and of a small number of initiated. one held as in all pngan countries, there were in reality two religions by the people in general, consisting only of the outer form of the esoteric doctrine, and presenting an assemblage of the gi^ossest superstitions the other known only to those who had sounded the depths of religious science, containing some of the more elevated doctrines, and forming a sort of learned theology, having for its basis the great idea of the unity of God. Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians of Thebes recognised one only God, who had had no beginning, and woidd have no end. This statement of the father of history is confirmed by the reading of the sacred texts of ancient Egypt, where it is said of that that He is the sole generator in heaven and on earth, and that God He has not been begotten That He is the only living and true He who has existed from God, who was begotten by Himself who has made all things, and was not Himself the beginnmg made."
race.

human

But

this

'

'

This sublime idea, the echo of a primitive revelation, has possibly been tlie secret of the constmction of some of the most curious temples Thus at least might we be able to explain those great of Egypt.
religious edifices of the

primitive ages,

without sculptured images',

without

idols,

such as M. Mariette has discovered near the Pyramids.

Unfortunately the idea was very early obscured and disfigured by the
conceptions of the priests, as well as by the ignorance of the multitude.

The

personal idea of

manifestations of His
fied in

God was by degrees confounded with the various power His attributes and qualities were personi;

a host of secondary agents, distributed in a regular hierarchy, in

inhabitants.

agreement with the general organisation of the world, and the preservation of
in
its its

Thus

originated that
finally

polytheism which,
entire

varied

and strange

symbolism,

embraced the

creation.
3. The mind of the Egyptians was especially directed to speculations on the destiny of man in another life. Of this fiiture state they fancied they saw symbols and images in a thousand natural phenomena, but it seemed to them especially represented by the daily course of the sun. The sun seemed to them, in the course he each day accomplished, to For a prefigure the transformations reserved for the human soul.

RELIGION OF EGYPT.

319

people ignorant of the tnie nature of the celestial bodies, such an idea

was by no means strange. The sun, or as the Egyptians called it, Ra, passed alternately from his stay in darkness, or with the dead, to an
existence in light, or with the living.

His

life-giving

warmth

pro-

duced and supported

all

existence.
;

The

sun, then, in the universe

was

he was the cause of life, but had received his life from no one; self-existent, and therefore his own creator. This symbolism, once admitted, became by degrees more and more developed, and the imagination of the Egyptians sought in the succession of solar phenomena, an indication of the several phases of human existence. Each change in the course of the planet was
regarded as corresponding with a different stage in that existence. Ra, moreover, was not considered solely as the celestial type of man, who

the general progenitor and father

was born,
nations

lived,

and died

to

be born and
all

the Egyptians

considered

because he was the greatest of

of
all

pagan supreme deity, the heavenly bodies, and the source

live

again

like other

him a

deity, the

light

and

life.

The

theological ideas of the Egyptians did not

stop at this

they subdivided him, so to speak, into several deities. ; Considered in his different positions, and under his different aspects, he

became
worship

in
;

each a different god with distinct name, attributes, and

in this feature the

Egyptian agrees with almost every other

is

mythology.

Thus
;

the sun during the night

in his

Atum

when

shining at

midday, he is Ra life, he is Kheper.

the day,
first

character of the producer and sustainer of

solar

These were the three principal forms of the

imagined many others.
considered as

divinity, but they also

As

the night precedes

Atum was

bom

before Ra, and as having at

These three manifespower were united into a divine triad, the prototype of a host of other triads composed of deities who personified the various relations of the sun with nature, and his different influences on cosmic phenomena. gods under a 4. Anthropomorphism, that is, the conception of human shape, obtained a place among these early Sabean ideas, and the Egyptians supposed that the generation of gods was produced in the same way as the generation of men. This is why they introduced into
alone proceeded from the abyss, or chaos.
tations of solar
their

theogony ideas on the respective parts of the sexes in

is

this

mysterious act of nature.

the Egyptians, the father

Diodorus Siculus says that, in the opinion of

the sole parent of the child, the mother
is

merely supplies nourishment. This

Sais

the part assigned by their theogony

Thebes by the goddess Maut ; at This principle by the goddess Neith, mother of the sun. represented only purely inert matter the lifeless mass in which generato the female principle, personified at

tion took place.

Thus, to borrow the mystical language of the Egyptian

priests, the


ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

320

mother of the gods was a creation of the god Num, or Chnuphis, a personification of the divine breath- animating matter, symbolised by the rain; for what happened to the sun was considered, in a more general and abstract sense, to have happened to the deity. Each of his acts was personified by a separate god, a new divine personage. Chnuphis is divinity, animating matter and giving it life ; he is the first
of the demiurgi, or secondary creators.

We may

see

by

this, that, in

Egyptian doctrine,
his breath, as
tradition, of

inert matter, the receptacle of

life,

identified with

the female principle, was not co-eternal with the god, but created by

was Chaos in the narrative of Genesis, and the patriarchal which we find here a distorted remembrance. The assimilation of the course of the sun with generation was thus complicated by The lower hemisphere, where he descends on a new symbolism. setting, was personified by the goddess Hathor. She was consequently considered as the mother of Ra, as having borne in her bosom the father of all beings, and her symbol was the cov/. In later times the Greeks imagined that they had discovered in her their own Aphrodite.

Worshipped as issuing ft-om the divine cow, the sun took the name of Horus, and was represented as a child lifted above the waters on a
lotus flower.

At

his entry into the world,

he was received by the same

cow, then deified under the

5.

name

of

Nub.

As

in

Egypt, navigation was the ordinary

mode

of locomotion

the Nile, as
it

we have

said,

being the great artery of communication

was

in a boat that the sun

was represented

in his course,

whether as

the solar triad, or in the lower hemisphere, as the

life. This subterranean sun specially took the were given him as companions, and assessors, the twelve hours of the night, personified by so many gods, at the head of whom was placed Horus, that is, the rising sun himself and the story went that this god had pierced with his dart the serpent Apophis, or Apap, the personification of the morning mists pierced and dispersed by the first This contest of Osiris, or of Horus his son, with rays of the sun. darkness, was very naturally connected with that of good with evil, a symbol found in all mythologies. Th-:nce arose a fable, very popular in Egypt, and alluded to by a evil was personified by one particular great number of monuments or Sutekh, called also sometimes Baal, who was the god. Set, supreme god of neighbouring Asiatic nations, and in later times, that of the Shepherds. The Greek confounded him with their Typhon, and Resuscitated by it was said that Osiris had fallen beneath his blows. the prayers and invocations of Isis, his wife, who reunites the features of Maut, of Neith, and Hathor, this good god found an avenger in his The death of Osiris, the grief of Isis, and the final defeat son Horus. of Set, furnish an inexhaustible theme for legendary creations, re;

emblem of another name of Osiris. There

BELIEF IN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

321

sembliug those of various Eastern religions, and specially the stories of Cybele and Atys, and Venus and Adonis.
6.

When

once the course of the sun was regarded as the type of

life

existence in the lower world, the doctrine of another

needed only
it

a reproduction of the same symbolism in order to establish

the Egyptians.
his resurrection

among
After

Man

descends to the tomb only to

rise again.

he enters on a new life, in company with, or in the sun. The soul is immortal, like Ra, and accomplishes the same pilgrimages. Thus we see sometimes on a sarcophagus the soul figured by a human-headed hawk, holding in its claws the two ring-symbols of eternity, and Ijeneath, as an emblem of the new life reserved for the deceased, the rising sun, assisted in his course by the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. This explains why the solar period, symbolised by the bird boitnc (the lapwing), called by the Greeks phoenix, represented the cycle of human life ; the mysterious bird was supposed to accompany the soul during its course in the lower world. The deceased was to be resuscitated after this subterranean pilgi-image the soul was to re-enter the body again, to give it movement and life, or, to use the language of the Egyptian mythology, the deceased was to arrive finally at the boat of the sun, to be received there by Ra the Scarabseus god and to shine with a brightness borrowed from him. The tombs and mummy cases abound with pictures showing the various scenes of this invisible
;

life.

One
on

of the vignettes of the

its bier,

Funereal Ritual represents the

mummy

the soul or human-headed

hawk

flying

towards

it,

bearing the Crux Ansata, the

emblem

of

life

(Ch. Ixxxix.).

This doctrine was perhaps imported from Asia into Egypt, and can be traced back to the most remote antiquity. It necessarily conduced to inspire great respect for the remains of the dead, as they were one day to be recalled to life, and was the origin of the custom of embalming. The Egyptians desired to preserve entire, and to protect from destruction, the body, since it was destined to enjoy a new and more perfect They also imagined that the mummies, even when enclosed existence. in wrappers, were not entirely deprived of life ; and the Ritual (Ch. clxiii.) shows us that the deceased was supposed still to avail himself of his organs and members ; but to ensure the preservation of vital heat, they had recourse to mystical formulas pronounced at the time of the funeral, and to certain amulets wliich were placed on the

mummy
on the

(Ch.

clvi.

clxi.

).

In general, the greater part of the funereal

ceremonies, the various wrappers of the

interior or exterior of the coffins,

mummies,

the subjects painted

different

have reference to the

phases of the resurrection, such

rigidity, the reviving
7.

as the cessation of the corpse-like

of the organs, the return of the soul.

is

Belief in the immortality of the soul

never separated fi^om the

322

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

is

idea of a future recompense for deeds done in the liody, and this
particularly to be observed in ancient Egj^t.

were to were not, however,

thought, as
is

Although all bodies descend into the lower world, Kar-Neter, as it was called, they
all

assured of resurrection.

To

obtain this

it

was

necessary never to have committed any great

sin, either in act

or in

proved by the scene of the Psychostasy, or weighing of

the soul, figured in the Funereal Ritual, and on

TJie deceased was, as

many mummy
by
Osiris

coffins.

we have

seen, to be judged

and his

forty-two assessors

his heart

was put

into one of the scales of the

balance held by Horus and Anubis, and weighed against the image of

Thoth registered the result. On this judgment, " Hall of Double Justice," depended the irrevocable lot If the deceased was convicted of inexcusable faults, he of the soul. became the prey of a temble monster with a hippopotamus's head he was decapitated by Honis, or by Smu, one of the forms of Set, on the
Justice
;

the god

delivered in the

nefftnia,

or block, of Hades.

Annihilation was believed by the Egj'ptians to be the punishment

reserved for the wicked.
faults

As

for the righteous, purified

from venial

by means of a fire guarded by four genii vdth apes' faces, he entered " Pleroma," or perfect happiness, and as the companion of Osiris, the good being par excellence (Ounnofre), was fed by him with
In all cases the justified, because in his human nature delicious food. he must necessarily have been a sinner, could not arrive at final beatitude without passing through many trials. The deceased, in descending into Kar-Neter, found himself compelled to pass fifteen gateways or porticos, guarded by genii, armed with swords (Ch. cxlvii. ), whom he could pass only by proving his good deeds and his knowledge of divine things, that is his initiation. He was subjected to the severe trials we have recounted in our analysis of the Ritual ; he had to sustain terrible combats with monsters and fantastic animals, and only triumphed by being furnished with sacramental formula and exorcisms, filling twelve
chapters of the Ritual (Ch. xxxi.
feated

xlii.).

One

of these creatures de-

by the soul at the gate was a real demon, the great serpent Refrof, or Apap, the enemy of the sun. Amongst other singular means resorted to by the deceased to conjure these diabolical phantoms, was that of likening every one of his members to those of various gods, and thus, as it were, to invest his person with

The wicked, in his turn, before being a sort of divinity (Ch. xlii.). annihilated, was compelled to undergo every sort of torture, and under
the form of an evil
lure

them

to ruin

spirit he returned to the world, to mislead men and he inhabited the bodies of unclean animals.

The

sun, personified

by

Osiris, was, as

we

see, the

foundation of the

Egyptian Metempsychosis.
he had become a retributive

god who gave and preserved life, and saving god. They even came to con-

From

THE EGYPTIAN TRIADS.

sider Osiris as

323

accompanying the deceased

its

in his

pilgrimage in Hades,
it

as receiving the soul on

entrance into Kar-Neter, and guiding

to

Himself the first raised from the dead, he assisted to raise those who were justified, after having aided them to overcome all their trials. The deceased, in the end, was even completely identified with Osiris, and so absorbed into his substance as to lose all individuality his trials became those of the god himself, and thus from the moment of his death the deceased was called " The Osiris." 8. In this hasty sketch of the essential and fundamental doctrines of ancient Egypt we have noticed only the most prominent features, only the principal personages of the pantheon formed by the sub-division of the unity of the first principle an idea always preserved in the sanctuaries, where combinations more or less ingenious were invented to
the eternal light.
;

reconcile this fact with polytheism.

We cannot here enumerate the secondary personages of the Pharaonic pantheon, as from their number
the
list

would be too

long.

In

fact,

these gods,

who weve

originally

only attributes and qualities of one sole absolute and eternal being, and who by degrees were invested with an individual and personal
existence,

might be
its

indefinitely multiplied,

and undoubtedly popular

superstition did

best to

do

so.

Often

proceeded from one single conception,

many of these personages and may be traced back to the

are studied closely, their ap-

same

original.

Frequently,

when they
they

parent

differences

another; and

we may
all

mythology and
But

may be identified one with soon arrive at the conclusion that Egyptian the tribe of its gods may be reduced to a very small
disappear, and
infinitely diversified in

number of elements,
in the popular

and

visible religion

in that presented
those

outward expression. by the out-

ward ceremonies
believed

in the

temples to the eyes of the people

the priests only and

all

these

divine beings were considered as absolutely distinct, and the people

them

to be so;

whom

they had
reli-

instructed in the secrets of religion

knew

the true foundation of

gious

faith.

a distinct

Thus the Egyptian religion, although originally based on acknowledgment of the divine unity, a last relic of the

primitive revelation, assumed the foiTn of an unlimited polytheism, with

strange, often monstrous, deities; and to the people, to the uninitiated,
it

was nothing
9.

else.

In the external and public worship the indefinitely multiplied

deities

were grouped into

triads, or series

of three,

who

represented to
a family

the people an image of the mystery of divine generation,

comprising, like a

human

family, a father, mother,

and

son.

These

groups, these divine families, reproduced in a material and tangible

form a mysterious and primitive doctrine, and were supposed to have given birth successively the one to the other, thus forming a continuous chain of emanations from the supreme deity, each link approaching

Y 2

"

324
nearer the

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

earth,

and descending

at

last

almost

to

the

level

of

humanity.

Here policy had intervened, and verj' cleverly too, in the organisaEach triad was worshipped in the sanctuary of one of the capital cities of the nomes, and no two cities worshipped the same triad. Now the rank held by the triad enshrmed in the sanctuary in the scale of the divine emanations, was in direct relation with the
tion of public worship.

and administrative importance of the city. We can scarcely even two or three exceptions to the i-ule, that when cities of gi'eat importance in very ancient times, and where a worship had been
political

find

officially constituted, lost their old importance, the gods who were there worshipped lost also their rank in the divine hierarchy. The supreme triad was that of Thebes, composed of Amai-Ra (Amen

the Sun),

who became officially the greatest god of Egypt, from the time that the twelfth dynasty established its native city as the capital of the country Maut, the divine mother par excellence; and Chons, son of Amen, who was also a form of Amen himself, for in these groups of
;

is always identified with his father. Amen is, howmost elevated, the most spiritual form of the deity presented by the Egyptian priests for the adoration of the crowds in the temples. He is the invisible and incomprehensible god, his name means "the hidden"; he is, in fact, the mysterious power who created, preserved, "and governed the world. An invaluable passage in the Ritual dis-

divinities the son

ever, the

tinctly represents

him

as the original

and only

first

principle, the other

divine personages being merely his attributes or emanations.

" Amen-

Ra," it is there said (Ch. xvii.), "is the creator of his members; they become the other gods who are associated with him. The parent god in the triad of Memphis was Phtah, the second
demiurgus, the personification of creative energy (but inferior in the scale of emanations to Chnuphis), lord of justice, and regulator of the worlds, believed in as the author of the visible universe ; his attributes, however, show entire confiision between the creator and the created,

between the author of order in the world and chaos. His wife was Pasht, the great goddess of Bubastis, sometimes with a lion's and sometimes a cat's head, considered to be the avenger of crimes, and also one of the forms of Maut. The sun was considered her son in
the sanctuary of the old capital of the primitive dynasties. Month, with the hawk's head, was the terrible and hostile form of the sun, when his rays strike like arrows and are sometimes fatal. He

was
wife,

specially

worshipped

at

Hermonthis, with the goddess Ritho his

Harphre (Horus, the sun), another example of the identity of the divine father and son. But of all these triads, the one most closely related to humanity in external form and worship, although the conception, as we have ;een,
and
their son

WORSHIP OF SACRED ANIMALS.

325

was one of the most exalted, was that of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, who were the object of universal worship in all parts of Egypt. They were said to be the issue of the god Set, the personification of the earth, and
of the goddess Nut, the vault of heaven.
Osiris, said the tradition,

had manifested himself

to

men and had

reigned in Egypt.

The whole

of the legend of his death from the violence of Set, of his resurrection,

and of the vengeance taken by his son Horus on his enemies, was said to have taken place on earth ; and every city on the banks of the Nile professed to have been the scene of one of the episodes of this great drama. 10. Symbolism was the very essence of the genius of the Egyptian nation, and of their religion. The abuse of that tendency produced the grossest and most monstrous perversion of the external and popular
worship in the land of Mizraim.
qualities,

To

symbolise the attributes,

the

and nature of the various deities of their Pantheon, the Egyptian priests had recourse to animals. The bull, the cow, the ram, the cat, the ape, crocodile, hippopotamus, hawk, ibis, scaraba;us, and others, were each emblems of a divine personage. The god was represented under the figure of that animal, or more often by the strange conjunction peculiar to Egypt, of the head of the animal with a human body. But the inhabitants of the banks of the Nile, instinctively averse to the idolatry of other pagan nations, preferred to pay their worship to living representatives of their gods rather than to lifeless images of stone or metal, and they found these representatives in the animals chosen as emblems of the idea expressed by the conception of each
god.
strange and ridiculous

which appeared .so Romans. Each of these animals was carefully tended during its life in the temple of the god to whom it was sacred, and after death its body was embalmed. Certain cities were pecidiarly set apart for each species, for it must not be supposed that every animal of each sacred species was considered sacred.
arose that worship of sacred
to

Hence

animals,

the Greeks and

A kw

only were maintained at the expense of the state, and under the

care of the greatest personages.

Thus

the sacred cats, after having

been embalmed, were carried to Bubastis, the hawks to Buto, the ibis The same animals, moreover, were not held sacred in to Hermojiolis. The hippopotamus was only worshipped in the Papremis all provinces.

nome.

The

inhabitants of Thebes held crocodiles in great veneration

in other places they

were hunted.

We

repeat that in the original conception, and for those

who

under-

stood the basis of their religion, these sacred animals were only the
living representatives of the deities, but popular superstition

made them

into real gods

and the worship of these animals was, perhaps, that

part of their religion to which the people were most invincibly attached.

326

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

says
if

Herodotus,* "a man has killed one of the sacred he did it with malice prepense, he is punished with death if unwittingly, he has to pay such a fine as the priests choose to impose. When, however, an ibis or a hawk is killed, whether it was done by A Roman soldier accident or on purpose, the man must needs die." under the Ptolemies, who had accidentally killed a sacred cat, was put

"When,"

animals,

and the Cambyses, when he invaded terror of the name of Rome. Egypt, caused a number of sacred animals to be ranged before his army, and that the Egyptians allowed themselves to be put to flight
to death

by the enraged mob,

in spite of the king's interference said that

It is

without resistance, for fear of injuring them.

rated and

There were, however, three of these sacred animals more venemore celebrated than any others, which, from the very commencement of their worship, v.-ere considered, by a most degrading con1 1
.

ception, not merely as representatives but as incarnations of the deity. The worship of these had been established, it M^as said, by the King Kekeu, of the second dynasty the bull Mnevis, worshipped at Heliopolis ; the goat of Mendes, the incarnation of the god Khem, or Min, in whom

was personified

in the

most brutish manner the reproductive power, and

who

then received the special

region of stability," of which the Greeks have

lastly,
first

name of Ba-n-ded, "the spirit of the made Mendes; and

the bull Apis, the incarnation of Phtah, whose worship held the rank in the religion of Memphis. Apis was bom of a cow, mysHe was teriously impregnated by lightning descending from heaven. to be black, with a white triangle on his forehead, a mark like a half

moon on the back, and a sort of lump or thickening of the skin, in the form of a scarabseus, under the tongue. Wlien this god died, all Egypt was in mourning, and solemn lamentations were everywhere made. As soon as he was manifested anew, the Egyptians put on their richest But the clothes, and gave themselves up to the greatest rejoicings.t live more than a detenmined number of divine bull was not allowed to years, and at the end of that time, if he did not die a natural death, he
was
killed
;

still,

however, they mourned for him.

deposited in the magnificent caves

The dead Apis was embalmed and

of the temple, called by the Greeks "the Serapeum," discovered by M. Mariette. He then became the object of a new worship. By the

very fact of his death, he had become assimilated with Osiris, the god of the lower world, and received the name of Osir Hapi, converted by the Greeks into Serapis. Of only secondary importance under the

Pharaohs, the worship of Apis, or Serapis, took a sudden development, and became of primary importance imder the Ptolemies. Changing completely its nature and features, it became a mixed worship, made by
*

Her.

ii.

65.

Ibid.

iii.

27, 28, 29.


EGYPTIAN ART.
327
the policy of the Lagides, the point of contact between the two nations,

Greek and Egj'ptian. 12. Such, then, was in reality the religion of the Egyptian people, a strange and almost inextricably confused mixture of sublime truths (vestiges more or less obliterated of a primitive revelation) witli metaphysical or cosmological ideas, often confused, always grandiose
;

refined morality, an abject form of worship, and popular superstitions,

" If you enter a temple," says Clement of coarse to the last degree. Alexandria, " a priest advances with a solemn air, singing a hymn in
the Egyptian language
; he raises the veil a little to let you see the god ; and what then do you see ? A cat, a crocodile, a snake, or some other noxious animal. The god of the Egyptians appears
!
.

It

is

but a wild beast, wallowing on a purple carpet."

Section VIII.
1.

Arts.

The

Egyptians were, even before the time of the Greeks, that

nation of antiquity
to surpass them.

who had

carried the plastic arts to the highest

degree of perfection and grandeur.

The

Gi^eeks alone have been able

is

The

genius of the Egyptian people

completely
sons of

depicted in the general character of their architecture.

The

Mizraim, as

we have

just seen, firmly believed in the immortality ot

the soul, and attempted to ensure the immortality of matter, with the
life in this

They regarded Thus, while they took little living, they displayed extreme magnificence in the resting-places of the dead. A people thus convinced of a future life, a people who preserved corpses for 4,000 years, had therefore adopted in their architecture such dimensions as would ensure solidity, and almost endless duration. The immense size of the
idea that the soul would one day re-enter the body.

world as only a prelude to a pains with the houses of the

be.tter life.

base was the distinguishing feature of their monuments.

columns, everything, in
fact, is

Walls, pillars,

short and thick in Egyptian buildings.

And

add to the appearance of this indestructible solidit)', the size of is augmented still more by a sloping method of construction, giving to all buildings a pyramidal tendency. The Pyramids themselves, those of Memphis, the largest of which is the loftiest building in the world, stand on an enormously large base ; their height is much
to

the base

less striking

than their breadth.

Thus making

their height,

as well
less

as that of all the Egyptian structures,

even the most elevated,

striking in this respect than for the greatness of their breadth.

2.

In relating in the preceding chapters the annals of Egypt,

its

mentioned the chief epochs of

istic features
;

the

first

we have and its essentially characterphase of development under the primitive dynassculpture,

328
ties,

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

entirely free,

and attempting always an exact imitation of nature,

the culminating point of the

the introduction of the hieratic and invariable canon of proportion

about the time of the twelfth dynasty

religious style,
;

under the eighteenth and the beginning of the grand nineteenth the absolute decadence commencing with the close of the reign of Ramses II. ; and finally the last "renaissance" under the
Saite kings.

Considered as a whole, and without reference to the differences

between various

epochs,

Eg}'ptian

sculpture
its

exhibits

a peculiarly

symbolical character, always recalling

religious ideas and to be was the Temple. There

original intention

to embody
of

their visible representative.

it is

Its birth-place

at first

found in the condition

merely

outline drawing.
in relief.

Next, the drawing is cut into the wall, or stands out Afterwards it is almost, but not quite, detached from the

and when finally the statue is completely isolated, though this is very seldom the case, for it almost always has a pilaster at its back, it bears unmistakable traces of its original architectural origin, and If we look at an the symbolical puqjose for which it was made. Egyptian statue its lines are invariably marked by conciseness or
wall,

brevity, not without finish, but without detail.

The

lines are straight

;

and broad

the attitude

is

stiff,
;

imposing, and fixed

touch,

the legs are

generally parallel and joined

the feet

or rather stand one

before the other in the same direction, and are also exactly parallel ; the arms hang down by the sides, or are crossed over the breast,
unless they are detachd sufficiently to hold

some

attribute, a sceptre,

crux ansata, or a lotus flower

but in this solemn and cabalistic pantogestures

;

mime, the
to

figure

makes
its last,

signs rather than

it

is

in position

rather than in action; for whatever

movement the statue seems about and followed by no other. Egyptian art seems in some respects to have remained in perpetual essentially grand, majestic, governed by the it is an art infancy It is majestic and grand from the very absence of severest rules. Whether in bas-redetail ; an absence voluntary and predetermined.

make

will

be

lief or in the

concisely

round, the Egj'ptian statues are modelled, not rudely, but they are not cut out merely as a rough draught, but, on the

contrary, admirably designed %vith studied simplicity in their lines

and

design, an elegant delicacy in their fomi, or rather, mathematical formula. Two things are evident and plainly intentional, the sacrifice of the

The nude small parts to the large, and the non-imitation of real life. figure is seen as through a veil ; the drapery of clothed figures sticks to
them
statue
like a second skin, so that the
is

clothed,

naked figure can be seen when the and seems clothed even when nude. The muscles,

and contractions of the skin are not rendered, not even the The variety that distinguishes living beings, the bony fi-amework.
veins, folds

SYMBOLICAL FIGURES.
essence of nature
replete with skill

329

is replaced by a religious and sacerdotal symmetry, and majesty. All groups of more than one figure are arranged on a parallelism of double members, and seem to obey a certain mysterious rhythm regulated by the sanctuary. The surest mode of expression in Egyptian

However natural and graceful a movebecomes formal when repeated intentionally and in an identical manner, as we see so often in the sculptures of ancient Egypt. This persistent repetition, making every walk a procession, every movement a religious symbol, every gesture a sacred cadence, becomes
art was, in fact, repetition.

ment may

be,

it

sublime.

The Egyptian

style is therefore

monumental
It is

in conciseness of expres-

sion, the austerity of its lines,

and

their resemblance to the vertical

and

horizontal lines of architecture.

imposing, because

it

is

a pure

creation of the

mind;

it

is

colossal even in the

It

smallest

examples,

because

it

is

supernatural and superhuman.

character, because
is
it

same recognisable
tion,
it

always presents the represents an invariable faith.

at imitative truth

Lastly, Egyptian style

the result of a principle quite apart from imitaall

has voluntarily discarded

attempt

for the

was as strong among the Egyptians as among the Greeks, as is proved by the faithfuhiess of some of their copies of animals compared with their conventional and artificial expressions of the human figure, as well as by contrasting the works of
faculty of copying nature faithfully

the primitive schools of

portions of the

art,

with productions after the reign of the

twelfth dynasty and the establishment of the priestly canon of the pro-

human body. human head, the Egyptian sculptor was more faithful in his imitation than in the human body, and showed how strong would have been his power of imitation, if art had remained free. With
In modelling the

what power
art so closely

is

the physiognomy of the various races expressed

!

whom

the artists wished to represent

No other people
truth.

have

in their

works of

adhered to ethnographical

Is there any further need to insist on the tendency to symbolism pre-

vailing in all Egyptian sculpture to such an extent that

we

find figures

with the monstrous combination of

human

bodies and the heads of

animals?

"In

exhibiting to us," Raoul Rochette has well said,

lion's,

"a

man's body with a

it

a crocodile's or jackal's head, the Egyptians

to exhibit rather than mixture of the two natures

certainly never intended us to believe in the existence of such a being;

was the embodiment of an idea they wished

a representation of any real thing.

The

was employed

to

make

it

plain that this

human body supporting an

animal's head was a written thought,

a personified idea, but never

intended to pass for any real being."

Thus, we

may

say, that

Egyptian sculpture was one form of their


330

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and
this

writing, an essentially symbolical art,

could not progress.

Symbolism was
it

for this great school of art,

it

was one reason why it what

the aromatic spices were to the

embalmed dead;

made

it

mummy,

but in so doing rendered

3.

everlasting.

Painting was hardly ever used by the Egyptians except for decora-

tion, to

accompany and set off architecture and sculpture; all buildings and statues were coloured. Nevertheless some small wooden steles have been found on which the subjects are merely painted, often with great delicacy and in admirable style and even some tombs, where the
;

nature of the rock did not admit of the execution of finished sculpture,

have had the internal walls covered with plaster and painted. This painting, however, is entirely sculptural in its character, and executed
quite in the style of a bas-relief.

The papyrus manuscripts of the Funereal Ritual frequently present vignettes designed with the pen with wonderful freedom, firmness and boldness, and sometimes with a purity

of outline recalling the decorations of Greek vases.

Section IX.
I.

Principal Monuments.

The most imposing monuments of Egypt, from and the most curious from their antiquity, are undoubtedly the pyramids of Gizeh. We have already mentioned the enormous amount
their size,

The Pyramids.

of labour required for their construction; but

to

we may be able perhaps form a more precise idea when we know that the largest the pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) is formed of more than 200 steps or layers of

enormous blocks.

When

entire

it

was 480

feet high,

nearly double the

at Paris;
its

elevation of the towers of the cathedral of Notre

Dame

base measured 756 feet, and it was composed of the truly astonishing mass of more than ten millions of cubic yards of stone material,

and nearly 3,000 enormous weight that the chamber intended for the royal sarcophagus had to support, open spaces have been left in the mass of the monument above it, forming five small chambers. A second sepulchral chamber is situated almost exactly below the first, and a third at a great depth below, excavated in the rock and forming no part of the building. The orientation of this gigantic monument is
miles long.

sufficient to build a wall six feet high, a foot thick,

To

relieve the

perfect, its four sides exactly facing the four cardinal points.

pyramids is similar, with the and the chambers they cover are cut in the rock. The second is not so high as the first, and the difference is rendered more apparent from the height of the rocky platform on which the first stands; its construction is also far from equalling in beauty that of the first. It was built to receive the body of Shafra
exception that their masonry
is

The arrangement

of the other two

solid,

GREAT PYRAMIDS AND SPHINX.

(Chefren), and
casing.
is

331
original outer

the only one

still

retaining a part of

its

The

third

pyramid

is

not more than a third of the height of

it

was found the wooden The coffin of the king Menkera (Mycerinus), by whom it was built. chamber where it was found, was entirely faced with granite. Now, to find that stone, it is necessary to go up the Nile as far as the first cataThis pyramid ract, and thence it must have been brought in boats.
the
first,

but was more highly ornamented ; in

had

also

seems, than the pyramid

an exterior casing of granite from Syene, but less ancient, it itself^ and added by the queen Net-aker

(Nitocris) of the sixth dynasty.

The

colossal
is

Sphinx

at the foot of the

if

Great P>Tamids, to which

it is

subsidiary,

monument completed

not

commenced under

the reign

of Shafra.

It is nearly ninety feet in

length and about seventy-four feet

The face measures twenty-six feet from the chin to the top. It high. is carved out of the rock it rests on ; the stratification of the rock has divided the face into horizontal bands. Advantage has been taken of one of these divisions to form the mouth. The great Sphinx was the
image of the god Har-ma-chu, the setting sun, a deity of an essentially between its two front paws was placed a small sanctuai-y, consecrated to that deity, reconstructed by Thothmes III. "This huge, mutilated figure," says Ampere, "has an astonishing The stone phantom seems it seems like an eternal spectre. effect one would say that it hears and sees. Its great ear appears to attentive
funereal character
; ; ;

collect the sounds of the past;

its

eyes, directed to the east, gaze as

it

were into the future

mountain,

its

aspect has a depth, a truth of expression,

irresistibly fascinating to the spectator.

In this figure, half statue, half

we

see a wonderful majesty, a grand serenity,

and even a

sort of sweetness of expression."

Besides Gizeh,

many

other localities, at various distances from

Mem-

phis, possess pyramids, though smaller.

Altogether sixty-seven have

been found, and, in fact, sepulchres of this kind were in use until the We find time of the twelfth dynasty. At Gizeh there are nine in all. important groups of them at Zauiet-el-Arrian, and at Abousir, S.S.E. of Gizeh one in the latter place bears the names of three kings of the At Sakkarah there are also fifth dynasty, who were buried there. several pyramids, the largest, built in stages, is, as we have already said, the oldest monument in Egypt, for it appears to have been the tomb ot king Kekeu of the second dynasty; another had apparently a very large platform on the summit, and was the tomb of king Unas, of the fifth
;

dynasty

its

ruins are

Lastly, the village of

326

feet

high

by the Arabs, Mastabat-el-Earaoun. five of these monuments, the largest of these pyramids is of sun-dried brick, and was the one
called

now

Dashur has

tomb

of Osortasen III. (thirteenth dynasty);

it

has

in front of

it

a small

temple, where the worship of the deceased king was conducted.

332

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

2. The Labyrinth. The Labyrinth, founded, as Manetho tells us, by a king of the twelfth dynasty, Amen-emhe III., but possibly com-

pleted or repaired after the departure of the Ethiopians, had,

believe the testimony of Herodotus, attracted the attention

if

we

and excited the surprise of Greek travellers almost as much as the Pyramids. Herodotus (ii. 148) even considers it superior, and describes it as formed of " twelve courts, all of them roofed, with gates exactly opposite one another, six looking to the north, and six to the south. A single wall surrounded the entire building. There are two different sorts of chambers throughout, half under ground, half above ground, the latter built up on the former; the whole number of these chambers is 3,000,
1,500 of each kind.

He

adds that he has seen only the

first,

as the

priests \\ere unwilling to take

him

into the subterranean

chambers con-

taining, as they said, the sepulchres of the kings

' '

who

built the labyrinth,

and those of the sacred crocodiles, the passages through the houses and the varied windings of the paths across the courts, " says he again, "excited in me infinite admiration, as I passed from the courts into chambers, and from the chambers into colonnades, and from the colonnades into fresh houses, and again from these into courts unseen before. The roof was throughout of stone, like the walls, and the walls were car\'ed all over with figures. Every court was surrounded with a colonnade, which was built of white stones exquisitely fitted together. At the comer of the Labyrinth stands a pyramid forty fathoms high, with large hieroglyphics engraven on it, entered by a subterranean
passage."

Twenty-three centuries

after

Herodotus, on the 25th June,

M. Lepsius wrote from

lines are written

the ruins of the

same monument*

1843, "These

from the distinctly recognised Labyrinth of Moeris and

is
still

of the Dodecarchy, not from the doubtful spot whose identity

contested,

myself was unable to form any conception rom the hitherto more than deficient descriptions even of those w^ho
I

of which

have removed the laljyrinth hither. An immense cluster of chambers still remains, and in the centre lies the great square, where the courts once stood, covered with the remains of large monolithic granite columns, and of others of hard white limestone, shining almost like marble. ... At the first superficial survey of the ground a number of complicated spaces, of trae labyrinthine forms, immediately presented themselves, both above and below ground. We literally find at once hundreds of them, as well next to as above one another, small, often diminutive ones, besides greater ones; and large ones, supported by small columns, with thresholds and niches in the walls, with remains of columns and single casing stones, connected by corridors, without
. .
.

* Letters from Egypt (Eng. Trans., Bohn), pp. 89, 90.

EGYPTIAN TOMBS.
.

333

any regularity in ihe entrances and exits, so that the descriptions of Herodotus and Strabo in this respect are fully justified. The whole is so aiTanged that three immense masses of buildings, 300 feet broad, enclose a rectangular place, which is 600 feet long and 500 feet wide. The fourth side, one of the narrow ones, is bounded by the pyramid, which lies behind it; it is 300 feet square. But the chambers lying on the farther side, especially their southern pomt, where the walls rise nearly ten feet above the rubbish, and about twenty feet above the base of the ruins, are to be seen very well, even from this, the eastern side ; and viewed from the summit of the pyramid, the regular plan of the whole design lies before one as on a map." The learned traveller found
.
. . .

the

name

of the builder,

Amen-emhe

III., inscribed in

several places

on the monument,

Funereal Grottoes." The Egyptians," says Diodorus Sicu"called the dwellings of the living, lodgings, because they were only occupied for a short time ; the tombs, on the contrary, they called
3.
lus,

'eternal houses,' because their occupants never

left

them.

This

is

why

they took so

little

pains to decorate their houses, whilst they neglected

nothing that could enhance the splendour of their tombs." cannot here enumerate and describe the innumerable private rock-tombs, all
decorated with sculpture, to be met with throughout the entire length of the Nile valley. The most remarkable are those of the neighbourhood of Memphis (Gizeh and Sakkarah), those of Beni Hassan in

We

and those of Gurnah, the principal necropolis of But we must at least give a short account of the celebrated royal tombs of Thebes, described by every antiquarian traveller who
Central Egypt,
Tliebes.

has visited Egypt. These subterranean constructions are almost as astonishing as the magnificent edifices near them. The most ancient of the Theban tombs belong to the eleventh dynasty; they are those of the Entefs, discovered near the village of Drah abu'l Neygah.

At the period these tombs were constructed, the sarcophagus alone was ornamented. The kings of the twelfth dynasty, although Theban by origin, appear to have been buried at Fayum, and in the neighbourhood of Memphis, under the Pyramids. The period of decline, and even disaster, following this has left no great monuments. We know no sepulchres, either of the Sevek-hoteps nor yet of any of the Theban princes, who contended with the Shepherds. At Drah abu'l Neygah has been discovered that of Queen Aah-hotep, mother of Ahmes. The sepulchres of the valley of Assassif belong to the eighteenth dynasty, where Amen-hotep III. and Ai, one of the
usurpers towards the close of this period, were buried. It is not, however, to the time of the eighteenth dynasty, but to the age of the Ramses of

and twentieth, that the most magnificent of the royal sepulchres of Thebes belong, those of Biban-el-Moluk, called by the
the nineteenth

334

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

find

Greeks the Syringes,

Egypt.

reckoned by them among the wonders of

is

The tomb

of

Ramses V.

most remarkable,

for the

long series of

sculptures or paintings adorning a succession of halls or galleries, ex-

cavated in the side of the mountain, and forming the approach to the

Sarcophagus Hall.

They

are mythological and astronomical scenes,

representing the sun's course, and the rewards or punishments to be

awarded
the Sun,

to the soul in a future

life.

The Sarcophagus

Hall, described

in great detail in the letters of Champollion,

shows us the course of

and the walls are covered with thousands of hieroglyphics.

the sixteen tombs of the valley of Biban-el-Moluk, a part only

Among

have their decorations completed throughout their whole extent, and these belong to princes who had a long reign, for the constraction of the royal sepulchre was begun at the commencement of the reign, and, more or less, was accomplished according to the length of time that When once the corpse was deposited in the king occupied the throne. closed, to be re-opened no more. the sepulchre, the door was Among the best furnished and most curious sepulchres we may reckon those of Seti I. and Ramses III. In the first are represented the various human races according to Egyptian ideas the sculptures of the second represent (as do those of the primitive ages) incidents in private life but there is also a symbolical picture of the Egyptian year, represented by six figures of the Nile and six of Eg}'pt personified, each bearing productions peculiar to the division of the year they were
;
;

intended to represent.

We

know

that the waters of the Nile deter-

mined
4.

in

Egypt

the succession of the agricultural seasons.

Temples and Palaces. The division of the French army commanded by General Desaix, hastening into Upper Egypt in pursuit of Mourad Bey and his Mamelukes in want of everything, without food,
no sooner got the first sight of the ruins of Thebes than they forgot at once their fatigue, their sufferings, and the proximity of the enemy, and seized with enthusiasm, unanimously began Thebes, in spite of all the disasters which have to clap their hands. in successively for so many ages fallen on this sacred city of Amen still presents the spite of all the ravages of time and of the barbarians grandest, the most prodigious assemblage of buildings ever erected by the hand of man. At Kamak, first, in the north-east part of the ancient city, and on the right bank of the Nile, is found a series of buildings erected by the labours of nearly all the dynasties from Osortasen I. to Ptolemy, father The description of this immense assemblage of the famous Cleopatra. of buildings would alone require an entire volume. To give an idea of its extent, it is enough to say that the sacred enclosure at Kamak is
fainting with the heat

1,170 feet long, without measuring the avenues of sphinxes, extending

TEMPLES AND PALACES.

in front of the outer portico, or the second temple, built in the

335

same

direction by

Ramses
is

II.,

but behind the back wall of the

feet.

first,

so that

the total length

about 2000

There

is

found that Hall of

Columns of
tion.

Seti

I.,

of which no words can convey a just concep-

"Imagination," says Champollion, " that, in Europe, may well conceive something superior to our porticoes, sinks abashed before the 140

columns of the Hall of Karnak.

scribe nothing, for

...

shall

be careful to de-

my

expressions cannot convey the thousandth part

of what ought to be said in speaking of such objects, or rather, were I

to attempt a feeble sketch, far

enthusiast,

and perhaps

for

from highly colored, I should pass for an a fool." " Imagine," says also Ampere, "a

forest of towers;

represent to yourself I40 columns as large as that of

the highest seventy feet high (as tall as the obelisk

the Place

Vendome,

of the Place de la Concorde), and eleven feet in diameter, covered with

and hieroglyphics, the capitals sixty-five feet in circumference ; a hall 319 feet long and 150 wide this hall entirely roofed over, and one of the windows it was lighted by still to be seen." "It is imbas-reliefs

possible," writes

also

M.

Lepsius,

"to

describe

the overwhelming

impression experienced upon

entering for the

first

time this forest

of columns, and wandering from one range to the other, between the lofty figures of gods and kings on every side represented on them, projecting sometimes entirely, sometimes only, in part.

Every surface
(Seti),

is

covered with various sculptures,

now in relief, now

sunk, which, however,

were only completed by the successors of the builder them, indeed, by his son, Ramses Miamun." *

most of

A series of colonnades of colossal rams of gi^anite, forming avenues, and of paved roads, connect the buildings of Karnak with those of Luxor. Here again we meet with an assemblage of monuments of various dates, to which each generation has contributed a stone. The most ancient part, the principal temple, is the work of Amen-hotep III.
to the north of this principal temple a gallery of columns leads to

another built by Ramses

It is in front

II.,

and

still

covering an area of 4,000 yards.

of the court before this temple that

obelisks; one of
Paris.

Ramses set up two them now ornaments the Place de la Concorde at

On the left bank of the Nile, not far from the village of Gurnah, is found a building every part of which recalls Ramses II. and his family; and therefore called by Champollion "the Ramesseum." It is quite clear
that
it

was the palace of

that prince.

It

is

composed of a

suite of

courts surrounded by, or filled with, columns, covered with hieroglyphic

inscriptions, recounting the exploits of the king.

granite colossus,

* Letters from

Egypt (English

translation, Bohn), p. 249.

336

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

represents

fifty-five feet high,

Ramses seated on

his throne.
;

Tliis is the
is

largest ruin of a statue

that has ever

been known
near

the foot alone

more than

thirteen feet long.

Of the Palace

of

Amenhotep

III., very

this,

nothing remains

but shapeless masses of ruins, and the famous colossal statues, called by the Greeks " Memnon." At Gurnah itself are the ruins of another

important

edifice,

commenced during

the minority of

Thothmes

III.,

and continued by Seti and his son. Lastly, a little further south we meet with the immense and magnificent palace of Medinet Abu. We have already had occasion to speak of this building, when referring to
the historical tablets found there, relating the chief events of the reign of

Ramses

III.

Thebes are the most extensive and majestic in the whole therefore spoken of them at some length. But we must not imagine they are the only ones existing on the banks of the Nile. Numerous other localities Philae, Ombos, Edfu, Esneh, Hermonthis, Denderah possess splendid temples some remain in their original condition, but the greater number were reconstructed under the
ruins of

The

of Egypt.

We have

Ptolemies in conformity with the traditions of the Pharaonic age.

At

Abydos
art,

the excavations of

M.

Mariette have brought to light one of

the largest and most beautiful temples of the best period of Egyptian a temple dating from the reign of Seti
I.
;

it

measures 486

feet in

length.

work of Ramses II., of Merenphtah, and of Seti II., have been discovered by the same learned explorer and eleven obelisks, numerous monolithic
ruins of the sanctuary of Sutekh, at Tanis, the
;

The

granite columns, and colossal steles taken from the ruins, prove that this

building

may be ranked
of

almost with the erections of the same epoch at

still

Thebes.

No monument
may be
this

Memphis

exists

standing

any remains there

the

are

hidden under

ground.

One

only of

temples of

great

city

has been disinterred

the

Serapeum, discovered by

Mariette. It contains in its enclosure the sepulchres of the Bulls Apis, from the time of the nineteenth dynasty to that of the Roman supremacy.

M.

Before closing this chapter, we must lastly notice in a few words the numerous buildings of the Pharaonic age to be found on the banks of the Nile in Nubia, between the first and second cataracts, and especially the prodigious subterranean temple of Ipsambul, with historical and religious sculptures covering its walls, and its fa9ade ornamented by four colossal statues of Ramses II., seated, each sixty-five feet high, and carved out of the rock. "These more than gigantic masses," says Charles Lenormant, " are treated in a manner rather grand than finished, with the exception of the heads, and nothing can be seen for truth, life and modelling, more perfect than these. Winckelman has


COLOSSAL STATUES.
laid

337

down no

other rules for that cahn beauty regarded by

art.

him

as the

highest aim of

The Ludovisi Juno,

parts.

one-fourth of

tlieir
tlie

size,

does

not excel them in the expression of the whole, or in

combination of so many

Give

!)ut

movement

to

harmony of these rocks, and

Greek

art

would be suruassed."

Additional Note

to

Page 239.

With

reference to the possible connection of the

Hebrews

\y\{\\

the

religious revolution

under Amenhotej) IV. or Chu-en-Aten, it may be observed that there is mention in i Chron. iv. 18 of " Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took "; and this name, Bithiah, seems to be particularly contrasted with Jehudijah (the Jewess), Mered's

other wife.

The passage seems to have excited the attention of some Rabl)inical and early Christian writers, and various speculations have been made as to who both Mered and Bithiah were, the general opinion being that Bithiah (daughter of Jehovah) must have been a proselyte. The genealogy in i Chron. iv. is so fragmentary and confused that it is difficult to determine the exact date of Mered; it seems, however, that he must have lived before the Exodus. The question will naturally occur. Under what circumstances could a Hebrew, even a Prince of the House of Judah, before the Exodus, have married a daughter of Pharaoh?
Is
it

not possible that this circumstance

may

point to the connection

of the

Hebrews with

the reforms of Chu-en-Aten.

May

not Mered

(Rebel) have taken a leading part in the revolution and been the husband of one of that king's many daughters ? It may be observed that as " Aten," or " Aten-ra " (the sun's disc) was. at this period, used as the symbol of one supreme deity, the title Su-t-ra or Su-t-aten, a name not unlikely to have been given to one of the daughters of Chu-en-Aten, might very naturally have been transcribed into
It
is

Hebrew
is

as Bithiah.

possible that future researches

may throw some

Tr.

light

on

this

point,

which

not without interest as belonging to a very obscure

period of the history of the Hebrews.

End of Book

III.

338

BOOK
CHAPTER

IV.

THE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS.

I.

THE PRIMITIVE CHALDAlAN EMPIRE.

Chief Authorities.
Classical Writers: The fragments oi Berosits, in Vol. II. oi Historicorii7n GrcBcoriiin. Didot. Herodotus, Book I.

Siculus,

Book

II.

Eusebius,

Diodorus
xiv., xv.

Fragmenta

Chronicles,

Book

I.,

Chap,

The Canon of the Kings of Babylon

Collections
Paris, five Vols.

of Ptolemy.

Botta, Monuments de Ninive, of Assyrian Monnments Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, London, 1851 Moniiiitcnts of Nineveh, 2nd Series, London, 1853; Nineveh and its Remains, London, 1851; Discoveries in the Ruins of Ninez'eh and Babylon,with Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan, and the Desert, London, Loftus, Travels in Chaldcra and Susiana, London, 1856. 185.^. Victor Place, Ninive et TAssyrie, Paris (in course of publication).

Collections of Cuneiform Texts Botta, Inscriptions de Khorsabad, Paris, 1848. 'Lay ?ixd, Inscriptions in the Ctineiform Character from Assyrian

Monuments, London,

1851. Rawlinson

scriptions of Western Asia,

and Norris, Cuneiform InLondon, 1861 and 1866.

Works of Moderfi Scholars on the Deciphennent of the Writing and the language: Botta, Memoire sur lEcriture Cu7ieifoi'me Assyriennc,

Paris, 1849. eitne, Paris,

^^ Saulcy, Recherches sur

1850
1854

On
"

Hincks, On the Khorsabad I/iscriptions, Dublin, 1849. the Assyro-Balylonian Phonetic Characters, Dul)lin, 1852 ;

I'

Ecriture Cunciforme Assyri-

Pronouns of the Assyrian and other Langiu7ges,'D\\h\m, the Assyrian Verb" in the "jfournal of Sacred literature, as well as a large number of dissertations published in July, 1855 the Monoirs of the Royal Irish Academy, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, and in the Jouriial of the Royal Asiatic Society. Rawlinson, On the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia, London, 185 1 ; Babylonian Translation of the Great Persian Inscription at Behistjui, London, 1 851. Oppert, Ettides Assyricftnes, Inscription de Borsippa, Paris, 1857; Expedition en Mesopotamie, vol. ii. ; Elements de la Grammaire Assyrienne, Paris, i860; Commentaire de la Grande Inscription du Palais de Khorsabad, Paris, 1865. Menant, Les Ecritures Cuneifoniies, 2nd ed., Paris, 1864; Expose des Elements de la Grammaire Assyrienne, Paris, 1868. Norris, Assyrian Dictionaty, London (in course of publication).
0)1 the Personal
;

On
:

Works of Modern Scholars on Saulcy. Memoire sur la Chronologic des Empires de Ninive, de Bahylone, et d^Ecbatane, Paris,

History: De


THE TIGRO-EUPHRATES
1849.

BASIN.

339

" Chaldee" in the Emydopf.die Moderne. Commerce dcs Peuples de r Aiitiqiiite, French trans., vol. ii. George Rawlinson, The Five great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, London, 1862 1868. Sir H. Rawlinson, A^ote on the Early History of Babylonia, London, 1856; On the Orthography of some of the late Royal Names of Assyrian and Baby lo7tian His I ory, hon&on, 1856; and numerous Articles in the Athenaum
Heeren, Politique

Guigniaut, Article

et

and in the Joiiriial of the Royal Asiatic Society. "Inscription of Tiglath rileser I., king of Assyria," as translated by Sir H. Rawlinson, Fox Talbot, Esq., Dr. Hincks, and Dr. Oppert, London, Oppert, Rapport au Ministre de P Instriiction Piddique, Paris, 1857. 1857; Expedition en Mhopoiamie, vol. i. ; Les Itiscriptions des Sarg07tides, Paris, 1862; Histoire des Empires de Chaldee et d'Assyrie, d'apres les A/onuments, Paris, 1865; Articles " Babylone'' and " Babyloniens" in the 2nd edit, of ihe Encyclopedie du X/Xe Siecle ; La Chivnologie Bibliqne fixee par les Eclipses des Inscriptions Cnneiformes, Paris, 1868. Oppert and Menant, Les Pastes de Sargon, Paris, 1865. ^\f:w3.vA, Les Briqiies de Babylone, Caen, 1859; Inscriptions de Hammourabi Roi de Babylo)ie, Paris, 1863. Brandis, Ueber den Historischeti Gewinn aus der Entzifferung der Assyrischen Inschriften, Berlin, 1856. F. Lenormant, Essai sur un Momunoit Mathcmatiqiie Chaldien, et sur le Systeme Mctrique de Babylone, Paris, 1 868.

Section
I.

I.

The Tigro-Euphrates

Basin.

The immense
first,

deserts extending from west to east across the entire

Ocean to the Yellow on the frontier of Asia and Africa, by the valley of the Nile, are again broken near their centre by a second oasis, larger and not less fertile than that of Egypt, in the exact place where the desert changes its geological character, and from a low plain becomes an elevated plateau. To the west of this fortunate spot, the solitudes of Asia and Africa are mere seas of sand, scarcely above, even where not below, the level of the ocean. To the east, on the contrary, in Persia, Kirman, Seistan, Chinese Tartary, and Mongolia, the desert consists of a series of terraced plateaux, from 3,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea level. The two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, form and surround
eastern hemisphere of the globe, from the Atlantic

Sea, intersected

this great oasis, called by the ancient Semites Naharaim, and by the Greeks Mesopotamia; and in the most ancient narrative of the Bible Shinar. These two rivers, about equal in volume, take their rise near each other on the sides of the ancient Mount Niphates (the modern Keleshin); in Armenia they run at first in exactly opposite directions, and enter the plain at the two extremities of the chain of Mount Masius (now Karadjeh Dagli), the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the west. From this point they gradually aj)proach each other until, in the thirty-fourth degree of latitude, they

with their waters

z 2

340

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

now
and flow into the Persian Gulf.

run parallel for thirty leagues, and afterwards unite into one stream,
called Shat-el-Arab,
2.

By

the geological formation of the soil, as well as

its fertility,

by the aspect of

the country and

Mesopotamia

is

divided into two very dis-

tinct parts, the north

and the south, the boundary being where the

part
is

rivers begin to run parallel at Hit, on the Euphrates, and Samarah, on

the Tigris.

The northern

divided in two by the river Chaits

boras (the modern Khabur), taking

rise

in

Mount Masius, running

from north to south, and flowing into the Euphrates at Carchemish, separating Assyria on the east from Aramaean Mesopotamia, the

Osrhoene of the Greeks on the west. All the northern part, as we said, is one great plain of secondary formation, fertile only where springs and water- courses are abundant, as in Osrhoene and the neighbourhood of Mount Sinjar; but in the rest of its extent resembling the neighbouring deserts, and like them, must always have been sterile and
have

on the contrary, comprising Babylonia and Chaldsea, is a still lower plain entirely formed of the modern alluvium (in the geological sense of the word) of the two rivers. The distance from one to the other is not more than a day's journey; and the country has the appearance of an immense prairie, only needing water to produce enormous harvests. The summer heat
unfit for cultivation.

The southern

portion,

in this region is excessive,

even for the

east,

but the winter

is

temperate

and

pleasant.

The waters

of the Euphrates and Tigris rise every year and inundate

the low land, though they do not, like the Nile, deposit fertilising
nevertheless, this natural irrigation,
in ancient times,
if

mud;
it

was would again make Chaldaea the garden of Asia. Rice and barley at one time returned an increase of 200 for one but now-adays that the canals are neglected, the produce is but a tenth of what it The country has no trees but the date-palm ; this, however, once was. forms entire forests, sometimes of enormous extent.
directed and controlled as
;

3.

From

this

hasty sketch

we may
its

see

the resemblance of the

natural features of the Tigro-Euphrates Basin to the land of Egypt,

especially as regards Chaldsea,
is

southern part.*
fertility,

This countiy also

yielding
its fruits

the gift of the river, a land of incomparable

is

almost without labour, and

the two earliest

an oasis in the midst of the deserts.

Nature herself has prepared these two countries for the theatre where human societies might form themselves and enter on Thus it is that in the plains watered by the the road of civilisation. rivers of Western Asia all the races of the ancient world have two great successively encountered each other, and from the days of Nimrod to those of the successors of Mahomet, have disputed the Empire of Asia.
* See page 194.


PRIMITIVE POPULATION OF CHALD^A.
Egypt and Mesopotamia have been the two great centres of
;

341

civilisation,

the one almost as ancient as the other, although priority belongs to

Babylon rather than to Memphis they have been the two rivals, in whose hands has alternately been placed the dominion of Western Asia. The Euphrates and the Nile have an easy communication with each Whenever Egypt other by roads fit for the passage of great armies. has been governed by an energetic ruler, she has endeavoured to subjugate Mesopotamia, as though an inevitable law forbade the existence of two rival empires, possessed of equal resources and placed in

A Thothmes or a Seti at Thebes, like analogous circumstances. a Saladm at Cairo, or a Mehemet Ali at Alexandria, have never pursued any other object so steadily as to march their troops on the Euphrates,
and attempt the conquest of Mesopotamia. In the same way, whenever a strong power has arisen on the banks of the Tigris or the Euphrates, whether at Bagdad, Babylon, or Nineveh, it has menaced Egypt and attempted its conquest. The history of Ancient no less
than that of Modern Asia,

more than one continuous record of political struggles between Egypt and Mesopotamia, ending only when the military power of Western Europe, with its great moral superiority,
is little

entered the

lists,

as in the days of

Alexander the Great and

in the

times of the Crusades.

Section
1.

II.

Primitive Population of Chald^a.

The

Bible places the

commencement

of the history of

mankind

" And it came to pass," says tlie Book Tigro-Euphrates basin. of Genesis, "that as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain and they dwelt there." There Scripture places in the land of Shinar of Babel, the first great city founded after the Deluge, and the building there occurred the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of races. We have already shown that this story was preserved in the Babylonian
in the
;

tradition, as well as in the

Mosaic narrative.*

After the dispersion of the sons of Noah, who originally were all the plains of Shinar, there remained in the country a living together This follows considerable body of people of various and mixed races.

from the Bible narrative, and

ditions carefully collected in

by the Babylonian trathe time of the Seleucidce by the historian

is

also attested

Berosus, a Chaldtean priest,

into Greek.

who

translated the annals of his country

" There were

at first,"

says he,

"

at

Babylon, a great

number of men of different nations who had colonised Chaldcea." 2. To the earliest date that the monuments carry us back, we can
*

See page 23.

342
distinguish

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

in this very mixed population of Babylonia and Chald^^a two principal elements, two great nations, the Shumir and the Accad, who lived to the north and to the south of the country. As soon as a monarchical government was introduced there, the first title of the sovereigns was " King of the Shumir and Accad," a title preserved in official documents by the Assyrian and Babylonian kings to the last The Accad days of their empire, though it had then no real meaning. occupied the southern districts, and had as their capital a city called after them, Accad, to be identified apparently with Nipur, the modern Niffer. The position of the Shumir was more northern they had also a city of their name, Sumere, mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus* as situated on the Tigris, and not far from Ctesiphon. Of these two gi^eat nations who constituted the mass of the population of Chaldoea, one was of the race of Ham. and of the Cushite branch. The presence of Cushites in Chaldoea and Babylonia is attested by the
;

Bible,

by Berosus, and by the universal testimony of

antiquity.

To

them, as
Assyrian.

we have
This
it is

already said,+ properly belonged that language ot

scholars

the family called Semitic, to which

language

was
in

common

to

Nineveh, and

found in use

Chaldaea as

have given the name both Babylon and far back as the monu-

have proved that the greater part of ments enable us to go. the Hamitic people, particularly those of the Cushite branch and the
Canaanites, spoke languages analogous to each other.
Lastly,
it is

We

in

vain to seek in the primitive annals of Babylon or the neighbouring countries for an event of sufficient importance to have suddenly given
the Semites a preponderance so great as to enable
their

them

to

impose

language on the other races. The other principal element in the original population of the lower It course of the Tigris and Euphrates belonged to the Turanian race.

spoke a language of the Uralo-finnish family, made use of, as we find, in some of the most ancient inscriptions of the Chaldxan monarchs, and, as is proved by the monuments, spoken as late as the time of
Nebuchadnezzar.
3.

The

fact of the existence

of an ancient Turanian civilisation, and

the presence of people of that race in Chaldaea, is one of the newest and least expected results of the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions,

and of the study of the

world.
It
is,

original

monuments of the Assyro-

and throws incontestaljfe, We have most ancient history of Asia. already seen X that the Turanians were one of the first races to spread out into the world, before the time of the great Semitic and Arian
Chaldsean
valuable
nevertheless,
light

on

the

XXV.

6.

t See page

72.

J See page 58.

TURANIAN RACES.
Asia and Europe.

343

misTations, and that they covered a great extent of territory Ijoth in

that district between the by the Iranians, and they also held the greater part of India. When the Semites on the one hand, and the Arians on the other, had finished their migrations, and were finally established, there always remained between them a separating belt of Turanian people, penetrating like a wedge as far as the Persian Gulf, and occupying the mountains between Persia and the TigroEuphrates basin. Media was not, as is often represented, peopled entirely by the Indo-European race. On the contrary, the greater number of its people belonged, then as now, to the Turanian race. Even the name "Media" is a purely Turanian word, Mata signifying "land, country." This alone would prove, even if other positive indications had not been
all

They

then occupied

Tigris and Indus, afterwards conquered

found to demonstrate it, that the basis of the population of that country has always been, dowTi to our days, of the Tartaro-finnish race, although from an early period the dominant aristocratic class has

been Arian.
Zoroaster.

And

it

was long before

this

Turanian Media ceased

to

struggle with varying success against the dualism of the religion of

More
course,

to the south, the

Turanians formed a notable portion of the

left bank of the Tigris in its lower and for a long time their language was predominant there. This remarkable country, situated on the common boundary of all the various races of Western Asia, had these several people inextricably mixed up together on its soil. There were at the same time Elamites of Semitic race, Susianans proper, and Arphasaeans of the Turanian family, Uxians, a branch of the Arians, and Cossseans, descendants of

population of Susiana, on the

Ham

of the Cushite branch, each preserving their distinct nationality,

and living side by side with each other, as do now the various races of Hungary.

The Turanians of Chaldasa formed the were connected with those of Susiana.

last link

of the chain, and

whence all the Turanian people had spread was towards the east of Lake Aral. There, from very remote antiquity, they had possessed a peculiar civilisation characterised by gross Sabeism, peculiarly materialistic tendencies, and complete want of moral elevation but at the same time an extraordinary development in some branches of knowledge, great progress in material culture in some respects, whilst in others they remained in an entirely
primitive centre,
into the world,
;

The

rudimentary state. This strange and incomplete civilisation exercised over great part of Asia an absolute preponderance, lasting, according
to the historian Justin,
1

500 years. *
*
ii-

All the Turanians of Asia carried

3-

344

ANCIENT IITSTORY OF THE EAST.

;

with them into the countries they colonised those ot any rate the branch now represented by the Esthonians seem to have separated from the main stock before making any advances in civilisation. This peculiar culture was introduced Ijy the Shumir on the banks of the Tigris, and by the Dravidians into India. This also it was that the hundred families carried into the midst of the
this civilisation

Europe,

at

Miao-Tseu, and other indigenous people of the Celestial Empire, and it became the starting point for the development of the civilisation of China, so different from that of all other nations of the world. Moreover, the Turanian nations, who, as we have said, maintained themselves between the Arian and Semitic races in Media, Susiana, and
thus

Chaldrea, did not

all

belong to the same branch of the Turanian

in

race.

We have

proof of this

the difference of their idioms.

;

The Median

language has left numerous remains its essential characteristics have been established by the researches of Westergaard, de Saulcy, and Norris, and it is decidedly a Turkish language. That of the Turanian tribes of Chaldsea, the key to which has been furnished by the labours of M. Oppert, and elsewhere designated by us as " Chaldaean," presents, on the contrary, the closest analogies with the idioms
of the Uralo-finnish group. of
its

Many of the words, and the greater part grammatical forms, particularly resemble the Finlandish. As for the Susianian, although very imperfectly known, the little we do know
seems to bear a likeness to both the Uralo-finnish and the Dravidian We may be allowed to suppose that it will one day furnish the connecting link, so long sought by scholars, between these two groups
of languages, the original parentage of which
is

group.

certain.

It is in perfect

agreement with the geographical situation of the Susianans, for they must originally have been Dravidians, and appear to have extended over Ariana and Persia, and were in later times driven out by the
Arians of these countries, as they were from the basins of the Indus and

Ganges, ending by being pushed into the peninsula of Hindostan, from any other Turanian people.
4.

far

Among

the Shumir and

Accad

it is

easy to distinguish between the

Turanians and Cushites.

is

Their respective geographical position alone

The Accad were the most southern ; they bordered on the sea, and continued the chain of Cushite peoples, who
enough
to determine this.

extended from the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to Malabar, occupying the whole shore of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. They were the
first

to attempt navigation

on these waters

in the

dawn

of the historical

period.

The Shumir, on

the contrary, were from their northern position

connected with the Turanians, and occupied a continuation of their

territory.

But though these two nations were the most important

in

Chaldsea and Babylonia, and formed the greatest part of the population
there, they

were not the only ones; other races mixed with them by

SEMITIC RACES.
defined locality.

345

slow degrees almost everywhere, without havhig a distinct and wellIn that country there were large numbers of Semites, both nomadic and settled. There were first the Assyrians, the great bulk of whom

went out of the land of Shinar, as recorded by the author of the Book of Genesis, leaving some of their number, however, who mixed with the Shumir and Accad. There were also the Tarechites, or descendants of Heber and Terali, who lived in the neighbourhood of the city of Ur, and did not (juil it to make an establishment in Haran (where the call of Abraham took place) until after the birth of that patriarch; and lastly,
a large number of families of the race of Aram,

who

inhabited the north-

west of Mesopotamia between the Chaboras and Euphrates, and had

firmly established themselves at an early period at
trict

Babylon and the

dis-

dependent on that

there in

common
to

language became the vulgar tongue with the Assyrians, from the ninth or tenth century
city
;

their

Some expressions in the most ancient royal admit of the explanation that the population of Chaldjea contained four elements of different origin, like those whom we have
before the Christian Era.
titles

seem
to

have existed in Susiana. We must therefore allow that, at any rate at one period, some Arian tribes were there, although we We shall, moreare unable to fix the exact limits of their habitation. over, see that at one time the Arians had a military predominance in

shown

the primitive history of Babylonia.

5.

differing people, united

This mixture of the genius and peculiar institutions of these on one territory, gave rise to the great Baby-

lonian and Chaldcean civilisation, which played so considerable a part

Western Asia, and extended its influence over the whole of that The two elements, Cushite and Turanian, had the preponderance, but it is very difficult to decide, in this mixed race, already completely formed when we first became acquainted with it, what There are reasons, belongs to the Shumir, and what to the Accad. however, to believe that religion, astronomy, and industrial culture were brought by the Cushites. This is indicated by the Babylonian tradition, placing the origin of its religious faith on the banks of the Persian Gulf, whence the Fish-god, Oannes, issued to teach men the
in

country.

precepts of religion.

As

to

the Turanians, they brought to

singular

system

of writing called

cuneiform,

Babylon and Assyria that each character being

formed of a number of marks having the form of a wedge or nail. The valuable researches of M. Oppert have incontestably established this fact. It is only within the last few years that cuneiform writing has been deciphered, and we shall in a future chapter explain its principles in
detail.

The

characters represent ideas either ideographically or syllabioften, according to the position in

cally,

and very

which they are placed

346

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

they are even cajjablc of being employed in both ways. Originally they presented a rude picture or symbolical image subsequently much modified of the object or of the abstract idea expressed by or con-

tained

in

the syllable

constituting their
in

phonetic value,

not in the

Assyrian language, but

the idiom of the Turanians of Chaldrea.

" in

Thus
a

the

word

for

" God
it

the Assyrian language

is

////,

l)ut

the

character rc]iresenting
star,

ideographically had

originally the form

of

and was pronounced an when employed as a syllabic sign, because, in the Chaldrean language the word for God was Aiinap, Again, the character employed for " ear" is found in other cases with

the pronunciation//, because the Turanians of Chaldsea expressed that idea by the word Pil (Magyar Fill). The same sign represents " fish,"

and also the syllable ha, because fish was called hal (Finlandish Hal). Another combined the meaning of "two" and the sound o{ kas, because in Turanian /-aj meant "two" (Magyar A>/). A third was employed both to mean " nose," and for the sound ar, because, always in the same idiom, "nose" was called ar (Magyar Orr). These examples will suffice, but they might be indefinitely multiplied. Cuneiform writing is then originally Turanian, and was the principal contribution of the Shumir to the Babylonian civilisation. Thus this people are often designated ideographically by a group composed of two characters, meaning " language " and " arrow," evidently
designating them as the people whose language was written in arrow-

headed or cuneiform characters. Did the Shumir or Chaldoean Turanians invent this system of writing on the banks of the lower Tigris, or was it already formed before their final immigration ? I would be rash perhaps to attempt in the present state of knowledge to give a decidedly affirmative answer to this question. But whoever studies the symbols forming the cuneiform writing, and attempts to trace them back to the objects they originally represented, will find that the nature of these objects apparently points, as the place where that system of writing was invented, to a region very different from Chaldasa, a more northern region, whose fauna and flora were markedly different, where, for example, neither the lion nor any other large feline camivora were known, and where there were no palm trees. 6. Are we to suppose that a branch of the Shumir, or Turanians of the north of Chaldsea, was the dominant tribe there from the beginning, or that the Chaldteans proper were another Turanian nation, whose establishment is still surrounded by the greatest obscurity? What is certain is, that the Chaldasans imposed themselves equally on the two great constitutional elements of the population of the country, no doubt by conquest, and that they remained there as a superior and learned They belonged caste, having both sacerdotal and military supremacy. neither to the race of Shem, like the Assyrians, nor to the race of


THE CHALDEANS.
;

347

Ham, like the Accad, or Cushites of the Lower Euphrates but they were ah-eady estahUshed in the midst of the Accad in the time of Abraham, when the great city of Ur was already called " Ur of tiie Chaldees," and even earlier, when the Semitic trilie, whence the Hebrews sprung, was designated by the name Arphaxad, which, as we have already said,* signifies " border of the Chaldseans." Their original country seems to have l:ieen the mountains north-east of Mesojiotamia, where the classical geographers place nations of the name of Chaldsei,
Carduchi, Gordisei, and where the Kurdish tribes
still live.

government and moral ascendancy in so decided a manner as to outlast all the revolutions the country was to undergo. They had the talent of assimilating themselves with the populations at the head of whom they had placed themselves, and maintained their position as a dominant aristocracy. They adopted its language and civilisation, amalgamating it with their own, and thus preserved their own superior position. But while adopting, for ordinary use and in their intercourse with the rest of the population, the Semitic idiom of Nineveh and Babylon, they did not, even down to the last days of Babylonian independence, give up the use amongst themselves of their own peculiar language of the Uralofinnish family that Chaldsean language we have already mentioned as
in establishing their political
;

The Chaldueans succeeded

apparently that of the original inventors of cuneiform

writing,

the

language of the Shumir.

The laws

regulating Babylonian society were

in

compiled

in

that language.

There are

the British
in

Museum some
a double text, of

fragments relative to the organisation of families

these
text,

Turanian-Chaldsean and Semitic- Assyrian. two versions proves that the Turanian

The comparative study

is
it is

the original and primitive

and that the Assyrian

is

a later translation, in which

easy to

detect several solecisms.

Section IH. Origin of the States of As.syria and Chald/Ea NiMROD First Cushite Empire.

I.

The

various populations residing together on the soil of BabyChaldiTca

must at first have lived in separation from each There was certainly a primitive epoch of tribal existence, of petty local kingdoms and some records of this state of existence have been preserved in Babylonian traditions, as for instance that of Sharyukin, king of the city of Agani, who appears in some texts as a legendary hero and almost a demi-god. But true history in the TigroEuphrates Basin commences only, as also does that of Egypt, with the formation in Chaldsea and Babylonia of one united empire, including
other.
;

lonia and

* See page 60.

348
all its tribes

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

under one sceptre an empire dating from such high anit seemed almost legendary to the author of the Book of In this state, the first regularly organised government in the

tiquity, that

Genesis.

world, the preponderance and dominion

among

the various tribes

Ije-

longed

at first to the

Ilamites of Cushite race.

"begat Nimrod; he began to Lord wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calnch, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh and the streets of the city (margin), and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city." This invaluable passage in the inspired book furnishes us with facts
of Genesis,
earth.

Book

Cush," says the be a mighty one in the

;

"And

He was

a mighty hunter before the

of the highest importance in the primitive history of Mesopotamia.

see there,
first,

We

Asshur remained there a long time mixed with the Cushites of Chaldaea, and did not leave it
that the Semites of the race of
until after the
to the north,

commencement
undoubtedly
to

of historical times,

when they emigrated

escape the Cushite dominion, formed a

new

state distinct

from the

first,

lengthened sojourn together explains

and founded the Assyrian cities. This why the Assyrians and Babylonians

had the same language and

their origin.

civilisation, in spite of the difference of

The Book

of Genesis also reveals to us the existence of a Tetrapolis,

cities,

or confederation of four

who

ruled over the rest of the land that

;

had been the empire of Nimrod. These four cities were, ist, Babylon 2nd, Erech, the Orchoe of the classical geographers, the Warka of our days, situated on the left bank of the Euphrates, forty leagues south of Babylon; its religious name was "the city of the moon"; 3rd, Accad, the ancient centre of the Accad tribes, called also Nipur and "the city of the Lord of the world "; its site was exactly in the centre

of Chald^ea proper, on the banks of the famous Royal Canal;

4th,

Calneh, "the dwelling of Oannes," also called Ur,* a Chaldsean name, meaning "the city" far exce/kn re, and also designated by the religious

names of "the city of the God who watches over the moon," and " the city of the house of the world " its ruins are now called Mugheir, and are near the first confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, at some They all four seem distance from the river and on its right bank.
;

to have simultaneously held the rank of capitals during the entire time of the existence of the first Chaldean Empire, and the kings resided
alternately in each.

political character

This Tetrapolis, moreover, had a sacred as well as the four cities were, according to Chaldsean ideas,

a representation on earth of the four regions of heaven, or the four

*

See note, page 80.

NIMROD.
cardinal points, just as in

349
divisions,

Egypt

its

two

Upper and Lower,

title

represented the two hemispheres of the world.

Thence arose the term,

of the

"king of the

four regions," an essential part of the royal

ancient kings of Chaldrea, and only in later times abandoned

by the

Assyrian kings.

Instead of four regions, four languages are sometimes

this

understood

seems to indicate that there was also a connection between the number of cities of the Tetrapolis and the constituent
;

and

elements of the population of the country.

2.

The

foundation of the Cushite state of the lower Euphrates was

almost coincident with that of the other branch of the sons of Ham in Egypt, and with the appearance of the first signs of civilisation on the

banks of the Nile. The fragments of Berosus mention this first said to have consisted of eighty-six kings (and, therefore, to have existed about fifteen centuries), and the founder is called Evechous. In the last syllable of this name it seems that we may recognise that of Cush. Possibly this name, preserved by Berosus, may be a traditional surname of the chief of the Hamite dynasty, and may have meant something like son of Cush* just as the name given in the Book of Genesis to that personage, Nimrod, is a Semitic word, meaning " Rebel." Evechous, according to Berosus, had for his successor Chomasbelus the original form of this name Shamash bel, " servant of Bel," seems to admit of easy restoration. 3. We know nothing from literary sources, either sacred or profane, of the history of the kings who succeeded Nimrod, or of the early times of Assyria. We may perhaps dimly perceive through the medium of the more or less fabulous traditions preserved by Berosus, that Chaldsea and Assyria had at first a separate existence. The Semitic
dynasty,
;

Assyrians occupied the

sterile plains

extending south of the mountains

river,

of Armenia, between the Chaboras and the Tigris, as far as Media.

In this

district,

on the

left

bank of the

they founded Nineveh.

Material civilisation with

all its

refinements seems to have been

more

slowly developed
less fertile,

among them

than in Chaldasa

inhabiting a country

and a climate less enervating, they remained always less same time more manly and warlike than their southern neighbours. All appearances seem to indicate that the Assyrians did not at first form one united empire, a great monarchy,
polished, but at the

but merely a confederation of tribes with essentially military chiefs.

Their principal
*

cities

Nineveh, Resen, Calah, Asshur or Ellasar,+ and

May not Evechous be the Assyrian Avil Kush, " man of Kush "? t Sir H. Rawlinson has identified the ruins of Senkereh in Southern Chaldaea, called in the cuneiform inscriptions Larrak or Larsa, with the Biblical Ellasar (Gen xiv. i). The author's reason for the identification
in the text
is,

that the

name

of the city

is

written in the inscriptions

with

ideographic

characters,

meaning

"City of Asshur," and the


350

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

had each
in

Singar, for the most part on the east of the Tigris, certainly

of them,

primitive times, a separate king.

The
the

Ilamites of T>abylon, on the other hand, spread themselves over

Their plains of Chalda;a as far as the Persian Gulf supremacy was marked by progress in industrial arts and in science, united with those superstitions and mythological ideas and traditions to be met with wherever the Cushites have established themselves their contribution to the history of the development of humanity by agriculture, mining of both common and precious metals, and comThe population increased rapidly on that fertile merce by land and sea. soil cities were multiplied, arts and sciences began to be developed astronomy took its rise under that clear sky while at the same time on
fertile
; :

the ruins of the ancient primitive faith, revealed to the

the ancestors of

human

race,

arose

a system

of worship of the

sun and other

The heavenly bodies, the foundation of the religion of those lands. Assyrians had carried with them some part of this civilisation in their They continued to live under the direct and emigration to the north.
almost exclusive influence of the Babylonians,
in the

who had preceded them

march of

civilisation,
it.

and were

their instructors in everything

that belonged to

Thus at a very early date, and undoubtedly long before when the Chaldtean monarchs conquered Assyria by force

the time

of arms,

there was, in spite of the diversity of origin, but one nation of mixed character, the Chaldseo-Assyrians, in the whole extent of the plains

From this time, however, watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates. and numerous nation appears to us as already sometimes Nineveh and Babylon were not universally divided into two empires.
this great

subject to one sceptre.

But an

irresistible

tendency to union always

appears from

time amongst them, and most frequently the two are The chief changes in the authority of one monarch. united under long series of Chaldsea-Assyrian kings may be operation during the
this

referred to fluctuations

in the seat

of their power, which oscillated

between Babylonia and Assyrian. south, where it had first arisen,

Transferred
to

sometimes from the the north, and again from the

character meaning " city" certainly had the sound of ^/, and the group

must therefore have been pronounced Al AssJinr.

The identification of Ellasar with the northern city may perhaps be The ruins at Senkereh were supported by the text above quoted. certainly within the land of Shinar, and therefore would probably be within the dominions of the king of Shinar. The northern Asshur was far beyond the limits of that kingdom, and the centre of a district, and head of a people, whose king was equal in rank and power to the kings of Shinar and Elam, and to the great chief of the Nomad
tribes.

Tr.

CHALDEAN
north to the south,
the
to its position at the time,

DYNASTIES.

351
called according

Mesopotamian empire was

the Chaldaean, or
the language,

the Assyrian empire.

But the

religion,

the customs,

these two alternately preponderating

and the boundaries of kingdoms remained always the

same

in all essential points.

Section IV.

Dynasties of the Chaldean Empire according

TO Berosus.
1.

After

a duration

first

Cushite, or

invasion rather

that we have no means of estimating, the Accad dynasty of Babylon was overturned by a foreign more than 2,500 years before our era. The invaders

were Arians of Japhetic race ; and this event appears to have coincided with the great migration, when the Iranian people, sprung from Japhet,
leaving
their

original

country on
of the

the banks of

the 0.\us,

directed

their course to the west, to seek

new

habitations in

Media

or Persia,

whilst another branch India.

same great race made a descent on

thus into Mesopotamia, Medes,
the

Berosus names the people

that
is,

who came

Iranians.

After

having

destroyed

Cushite kings they

reigned in Babylon for 224 years. With this conquest he connects a name, veiy celebrated in Eastern tradition, that of Zoroaster, chief of
legislator, and whose by war, left so deep an impress in the countries bordering on the Euphrates and Tigris, and particularly in Persia and Media. That Zoroaster was ever at Babylon seems very improbable, and doubtless the appearance of his name at that time in the

the Bactrians,

who was both conqueror and

doctrine, propagated

Chaldaean historical traditions merely proves that the Arian invaders

already possessed the dualistic form of religion that
in

we

shall

speak of

another book.

However,

although the ancient Persian tradition

informs us that Zoroaster himself taught his religion in Bactria, where

was the centre of

towards Persia,
it

that faith previous to the migration of the Iranians

tells

us nothing positive either as to the original

country of Zoroaster himself, nor especially as to the precise period

when he
2.

lived.

But the domination of the Arians at Babylon and in Mesopotamia was soon to be brought to a close their supremacy could never be established otherwise than temporarily in Asia on this side Mount Zagros it was brought to a final close in Chaldfea, and suspended for some centuries in Media, by the defeat of the Arians, over whom the Turanians, antagonistic from time immemorial, regained the upper
;

hand.
After the Median or Arian, Berosus records a

new dynasty

as having

352
supplanted
it.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Unfortunately such fragments as have come
tlie

down

to us

mention neither
eleven kings.

duration nor the origin of this royal family of

Scholars, as for example Sir

H. Rawlinson and M.

Oppert, are agreed in admitting that it must have reigned rather more than two centuries, and have occupied the throne from about the year

2300

to the year

2100 before the Christian

era.

As

to the native

country of these kings, the proofs of their decisive valour show that they were Elamite or Susianian, and had gained the country by
conquest.
It is at this

period that

we

find

from the Bible that Che-

dorlaomer, king of Elam, was master of the whole Tigro-Euphrates He had as vassals Amraphel, king of Shinar, or Chaldcea, basin.
Arioch, king of Ellasar, the chief of the Assyrian
' '

cities

of that time,

king of nations, " and with them made an expedition and Thargal, towards the west, temporarily subjected the whole of Syria, even as far as the frontier of Egypt, plundered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, led Lot away captive, and was at last defeated by Abraham. The name of Chedorlaomer unquestionably belongs to the language of the Susianian Turanians, and is composed of elements found in

names of a

later period in the native inscriptions of the country.

With
written

regard to the

name "king

o. nations,"

Tidal, and the Greek version of the

the Hebrew text LXX., Thargal;

has

it

this last

form

seems undoubtedly preferable, as it agi'ees with the form Turgal, meaning in one of the oldest Turanian idioms found in the cuneiform The "nations" over inscriptions (the Chaldeean) "great chief" whom this personage ruled were probably nomadic tribes of Scythians,
or Turanians.

Such are the arguments which have hitherto

clearly

sufficed to

prove that

the third dynasty of Berosus was Elamite or Susianian.

But the

fact

proved by the direct testimony of cuneiform texts, conis now taining the name of the founder of this dynasty and the approximate
date of his reign.
Asshur-bani-pal, the last of the Assyrian conquerors,

mentions,

two inscriptions, that he took Susa 1635 years after Kedornakhunta, king of Elam, had conquered Babylonia. He found in that city the statues of the gods taken from Erech by Kedornakhunta, and replaced them in their original position. It was in the year 660 B.C.
in

that Asshur-bani-pal took Susa.

The

date, therefore, of the conquest

of Babylon by Kedornakhunta, and the establishment of the Elamite

dynasty in Chaldoea, must have been 2295 B.C. The dates of 3. A new dynasty follows this in the lists of Berosus. this historian, apparently reliable, and based upon a regular and correct
chronology, place
its

accession in the year 2017 B.C.

This dynasty

is

specified as Chaldsean,

and Berosus says

it

consisted of forty-nine kings;

reigned 458 years, and governed down to the time of the

that
it

conquest of Mesopotamia by the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty.


NAMES
The frat^ents
ever, contain

IN

THE INSCRIPTIONS.

353

preserved by the Byzantine chronologers do not, how-

one single name of the kings registered by the historian

Berosus in this part of his canon.

Section V.
1.

Royal Names supplied by the Inscriptions.

have
as yet

The

ruins of Chaldsea
It

been but very imperfectly

explored.
tions

on a large

has not been practicable to carry out continuous excavascale ; but the results of the labours of Mr. Loftus and

Colonel Taylor lead us to the conclusion that, when a complete and

careful investigation of the ruins of the ancient cities

on the Lower

Euphrates can be made, they will yield treasures as valuable as those of Egypt. The ruins undoubtedly contain an immense number of remains, some of enormous size, and some belonging perhaps to the age of the primitive Chaldsean Empire. The inscriptions known in Europe, generally stamped on bricks,
have
at present supplied us

with about

fifty

empire.

These do not form a continuous

names of the kings of that series, but seem to be disPalseographical variations

persed over a very long series of ages.

The

observed in the

mode

of writing in these inscriptions lead us to attribute

them
time.

to several different periods, separated

by very long

intervals of

In general, the names

three, leaving

two or

we know may be arranged in groups of between them enormously long intervals, reserved
fill

for future discoverers to

up.

In this position of things it is impossible to classify the royal names recovered from the ruins of Ur, Erech, Larsam (now Senkereh), the

Larancha of Berosus, of Nipur (now Niffer), and of Sippara, the Heliopolis of the Greek geographers (now Sufeira), or to assign them We are, their true place in the four dynasties mentioned by Berosus.
however, even

now in

a position to determine to

antiquity of these kings, and to establish

some extent the relative some landmarks in monu-

mental history concordant with the facts collected by the Chaldasan priest for the information of the Greeks of the Seleucidan era. 2. The most ancient monarch of Chaldsea mentioned in the inscriptions

we

sun."

Ur-Hammu, whose name signifies "light of the He was known to classical antiquity, and considered so compossess
is

pletely legendary, that

Ovid

related the mythological story of Clytie

and Leucothea

as having occurred in his family.*

the seventh king of the empire.

*

He was said to be His inscriptions present the most

isque,
iv.

" Rexit Achacmenias urbes pater Orchamus

Septimus a
prisci

numeratur origine Beli." Metaph.

212, 213.

A A

354

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlie

ancient type of cunciroiin writing at present known,

nearly approaching the original hieroglyphical figures.

types most

His monuments

have

all

the characteristics of very remote antiquity, an antiquity un-

surpassed by the

monuments of

the third or fourth Egyjjtian dynasty.

He was
we have

the builder of the great pyramid at Ur, or Calneh,* where, as

seen, as well as at Borsippa,

was

laid the scene of the events

some of his buildings had already fallen into ruin by the time of the Elamite dynasty, and one of its kings, Burnaburyash I., restored those that he hatl Ijuilt in honour of the sun at Larsam. These facts enable us with little doubt to place Ur-Hammu at the very commencement of the empire in the Cushite, or Accad dynasty of Nimrod, and rather towards its commencement than its end. Recent discoveries withdraw this king from the realms of fable, and place him in the full light of historical truth. He was the great builder among all the kings of the old Chaldcean empire; he built at Ur, in addition to the great pyramidical temple dedicated to Sin, the Moon-god, the fortified walls of the city; in Nipur, a temple to the Air-goddess, and another to Bilit-Taauth, mother of the gods in Erech, a second temple to Rilit and lastly, at Sippara and at Larsam, monumental sanctuaries in honour of the sun. His name, stamped on buildingbricks, has been found in the ruins of all the cities of Lower Chaldasa; but there is no trace of his reign to the north of Babylon. Ilgi, son of Ur-Hammu, completed the temple of Sin at Ur. At a short interval after these kings must be placed Shagaraktiyash, who was considered a very ancient monarch by the Elamite king Kurigalzu I. He it was who built at Sippara the largest temple of that sacred city, described at length by Berosus, on the site where it was
of Tongues. "t
Lastly,

connected with the "

Tower

said that the mythical

King Xisuthrus had,

at the time of the deluge,

buried the tables containing the story of the early days of mankind,

and the

revelation of the mysteries of the cosmogony.

An

alabaster

vase bearing the

inscriptions of

name

of his son,

Naram-Sin (he who

exalts Sin, the

Moon-god), presents a type of writing almost as archaic as that of the Ur-Hammu. A king who may dispute the palm of antiquity with Naram-Sin and his father is Sin-Said (Sin is his lord), vifho executed considerable works at Erech. The close analogy in the formation of their names seems to indicate that a large group of princes, evidently, however, many generations later, belonged to the same royal family. These all, as the chief element in their names, have the name of the god Sin, the great god of the city of Ur, whose worship seems to have been peculiar to the Cushite race, for they carried the observance with them wherever they went, whilst Sin played only a secondary
*

See note,

p. 80.

+ See page

22.

MEDIAN INVASION.
part in the Pantheon of later times in Chaldsea.
Sin,

355

These were IrshuRim-Sin, Amar-vSin, Sin-Inun, Sin-baladan, who have all left monumental remains at Ur. We may remark that all the names we have mentioned, with the exception

of that of

Shat^araktiyash,

are

derived from the

Assyrian

language, and in that tongue are easily translated.

The

royal

names

we meet with

in the later

days of the existence of the empire have an

entirely different character.

Now we

have already attempted

that this idiom, of the family improperly called Semitic,

to show was the national

language of the Cushites of the monarchy of Nimrod.

Under
been

the primitive kings

life

whom we
its

have named, the birthplace of

the political
in the

of the empire,
or

focus and centre, appears to have

south of Chaldsea, near the Persian Gulf, in the very heart

of the

exclusively Cushite,

Accad

country.

The

great

city,

the

where the sovereigns usually resided, and which each of them endeavoured to embellish with new buildings, was Ur. Babylon was therefore evidently under the supremacy of Ur in matters of government, but it was nevertheless the sacred city, the learned city, the religious metropolis. Just as the four cities of the Tetrapolis we have already mentioned, took the lead of all others in the country, so Ur was supreme over the other three cities of the Tetrapolis. 2. The invasion of the Arian Medes has left but few monuments; like the Canaanitish Shepherds in Egypt, they were mere barbarians compared with the civilised Chaldeans. The period of their rule will therefore probably always remain a gap in the monumental series. At any rate in the inscriptions as yet discovered, no one royal name is mentioned of an Arian character, such as those ot the princes of the Median dynasty must have been. But this is not the case with the
political capital

Elamite or Susianian dynasty that overthrew them.

but

have no inscription of Chedorlaomer, nor of Kedoniakhunta, of a king, proved by the analogy of his name derived from the Susianian language to have belonged to the same family,

We

we have some

Kedormabug. Pie calls himself, in an inscription at Ur, " Conqueror of the West "; and in another text his son says of him, "My father enlarged the empire of the city of Ur." He was therefore a conqueror like Chedorlaomer, whose warlike example he followed. Kedormabug had a son who succeeded him on the throne, and who bore the purely Assyrian name of Zikar-Sin (servant of Sin) as the dynasty had become nationalised and had adopted the language of the country. Two kings with Susianian names, Burnaburyash I. and his son, Kurigalzu I., both of them great builders, must undoubtedly be assigned to the same royal family. But they seem to have been more ancient
;

still;

anterior even to Chedorlaomer, and to the establishment of the

sovereignty of the Elamite dynasty in Assyria.

In

fact,

Kurigalzu,

3S6

ANCIENT IITSTORY OF

TIIF.

EAST.

wishing to cover the northern frontier of Chaklrea on the side of the Assyrians, built tliere an important fortress which, fifteen ccntiuics after, under Sargon (Sliaryukin), was considered tlie key of tlie country; it

was calkd Dur-Kurigalzu,

ruins
still

"The

Castle of Kurigalzu," and

its

large

exist at

Akkerkuf, west of Bagdad.

Ishmi3. We now come to kings whose date we are able to fix. Dagan (Dagon hears him) and his sons Gungun and Shamshi-Bin, who succeeded him on the throne. Under these princes the Chalda;an

empire included all Assyria, and the limits of the extended empire of the Elamite dynasty were maintained. Their inscriptions have been found at Ur, where the royal residence

was still fixed, but at the same time the temples of Oannes at EUasar (now Kileh Sherghat), on the Upper Tigris in Assyria, had been built by Ishmi-Dagan, who thus proved himself sovereign of that country.
Tiglath Pileser
official
I.

(Tuklat Pal-ashar) gives us this information in the

Tiglath Pileser
as

records of his reign, stating that he rebuilt this temple 701 years
I.,

after its first foundation.

we

shall see, reigned in

the year lioo B.C.; the chronological fact furnished by this inscription
therefore clearly indicated about the year 1800 B.C. for the reign of

Ishmi-Dagan.

This king

may

therefore with certainty be assigned to

the dynasty called by Berosus Chaldsean.

During his reign the ancient empire attained the height of its greatness, in consequence of the union of Assyria to Chaldtea; and this is the very time when Manetho records that Set-aa-pehti-Noubti, the first king of the regular Shepherd dynasty, was under apprehensions of danger from the increase of the Chaldsean
empire, and fortified Avaris to avert a possible attack from the nations

on the banks of the Euphrates. At this time both the power and the prosperity of the first Chaldsean empire, then including all Mesopotamia, reached their culminating point. At least five reigns after Ishmi-Dagan must be placed Hammurabi, who, of all the kings of this ancient empire, is the best known from the labour bestowed on his inscriptions by a French Assyriologist, M. Menant. Hammurabi was a powerful king who erected numerous buildings in various parts of the country, especially in Chaldaja and in He appears to have resided more often at Babylon than at Ur. Irak. The chief work of his reign, at once the greatest and the most beneficial, was the famous Royal Canal of Babylon, the principal artery and
centre of the system

of irrigation

of

Upper Chaldcea,

repaired

by

Nebuchadnezzar in later times, and considered by Herodotus as one of This canal was at first known by the name of the wonders of Babylon. "I have caused," says this king in an inscription, "to its constructor. be dug the Nahar-Hammurabi (canal of Hammurabi), a benediction for the men of Babylonia. ... I have directed the waters of its branches over the desert plains; I have caused them to run in the dry channels


EARLY CHALDyEAN KINGS.
and thus given unfailing waters
distant cities.
I

357
1

to the people.

...

have

dis-

tributed the inhabitants of the land of the

Shumir and Accad among

I have changed desert plains into well-watered lands. have given them fertility and abundance, and made them the abode of

happiness."

The

inscription from

most ancient

text in our possession,

all

which we quote these passages is the and written phonetically in the

Assyrian language, like

the later inscriptions of the kings of Assyria

and Babylon. The monumental

of those of

inscriptions of

more ancient

kings, and even part

Hammurabi

himself, are exclusively written in ideographic

characters, and the few grammatical forms written phonetically that are found in them prove that they were intended to be read in the Tura-

nian Chaldsean,

as

the

others were

in

the

Semitic Assyrian; this

difference of style distinguishing

them from

texts of later date renders

the ancient inscriptions very

difficult to interpret.

Hammurabi had succeeded to known among the various empires

on a
tablet of

a queen, the only female sovereign of the Euphrates Basin.

list

This

fact

is

ascertained from a fragment of the royal

in

cuneiform writing inscribed

Hammurabi
they were
is,

thirteen

all

Turanians

thus

now in the British Museum. It records after names of kings, of whose history we know nothing; Chaldrean in the most restricted sense of the word that
baked
clay,

confirming the statements

of Berosus as to the

origin of the dynasty;

later date

some of

the

names much resemble those of a

and the dominant
tablet contains a

found in the inscriptions of Susiana; a fact that need not

excite surprise, as the Chaldasans, properly so called,

race in Susiana, were equally of Turanian origin.

translation of these
it is

The

names

into the Assyrian language.

Unfortunately

very

much

mutilated.

The

series of kings, successors to

Hammu-

by this " London list " must bring us down to nearly the close of the Chaldsean dynasty, ending according to Berosus about
rabi, furnished

1559 B.C.

Section VI.

Monuments of the Primitive Chaldean

Empire.
Chaldeean empire has
size in
left

I.

The

first

very

many monumental

remains of very large

the most southern part of the Tigro-

ruins of Ur, Erech, Sippara, Nipur, and most part to this remote period. The kings of the later Babylonian empire, Nebuchadnezzar [Nabu-kudur-ussur] and his successors have merely repaired the temples and the walls of these cities, and were not the original builders. Stone is entirely wanting in the alluvial plains of Chaldica; it could

Euphrates Basin.

The

Larsam belong

for the

3S8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Tlius
tiie

only he obtained fi\)m a great distance, and at a great expense.

all

buildings of the kings of the

first

empire, like the

Tower

of

Babel, and like those of Babylon in

sively of bricks.

all

ages, M'ere constructed excluis

On

each of these bricks

stamped the name of the

king

who

erected the building, and the greater part of the inscriptions

general the interior of these edifices

In of the early Chakhiean kings in our possession are of this kind. is of merely sun-dried bricks, with

here and there layers of reed matting cemented with bitumen, to give greater cohesion; this mode of construction is described by Herodotus*
in

speaking of the walls of Babylon.

Sometimes
is

also courses of

baked

bricks are alternated, to give greater .stability to the work.

The body

of masonry, composed of sun-dried bricks,

almost invariably cased

with burnt brick, to protect

disintegration.
2.

it

from the action of rain and to prevent

period are
all

The

sacred edifices of

tliis

of the

same type; a

pyramid

Ijuilt in

stages, a series of square teiTaces

it,

one above the other,

each terrace smaller than the one beneath

building occupied a large
site, its

so that while the base of a

upper story was very small. This is ho\V the Tower of Babel had Ijeen built; and also the most This ancient of the Pyramids of Egypt, that of Sakkarah for instance.

mode

of

construction

for

sacred

edifices

was connected with the

form of the religion of

essentially astronomical character of the original

the Chaldasans.

They

thus thought to approach nearer to the heavenly

;

bodies, the objects of public worship

and the temples were really obOn the upper platform was servatories for watching their motions. richly ornamented, containing built a small chapel or square chamber, The casing of each terrace was the image of the deity of the temple. Sometimes, of bricks, differing in dimensions and colour from the rest. as in the great temple at Ur, the lower stage that supported the weight of all the others, and therefore required great solidity, was strengthened by buttresses built of burnt bricks and arranged in a very scientific
manner. Constnicted of such materials, so liable to disintegration, the palaces and houses of the primitive epoch in Chaldsea have left nothing on their sites but shapeless masses of ruins, where we are unable to make out
the original plan of the building.

The

results of the excavations of

Colonel Taylor enable us, however, to state that the halls were long and narrow, little better than mere passages, for it was impossible to put any The inside of great weight on vaults built of earth or sun-dried bricks.
the walls was plastered with a thick coat of mortar; and in this were
fixed cones of coloured terra-cotta, with the base outwards, arranged so

as to produce patterns of lozenges, chevrons, or squares.

At

short

Her.

i.

170.

CHALD^.AN MANUFACTURES.
pillars,

359

distances were semicircular projections in the walls, like half-detached

but without bases, and probably also without capitals.

of the

Tombs

consisting of a small

same age have been found in great number chamber 7 feet long, 35 feet wide and

at

Ur, each

5 feet high,

built of burnt bricks.

In these there has been observed an attempt at

a pointed arch, formed by courses of bricks overlapping each other, a

system of construction that has been met with in Egypt and in the
Pelasgic buildings in Greece.
3.

The

pottery discovered in these tombs

is in

general rude, and for

This implement was, however, then already known, for some vases of better workmanship have been found bearing traces of its use. The utensils found in the tombs prove that the Chaldasans from the time of their earliest kings knew the art of working metals, gold, bronze, lead, and even iron and this knowledge they owed to the Cushile element of the population. But metals, though known and easily worked, were nevertheless too scarce to be in general use, and implements of chipped and polished flint, knives, arrow heads, axes, and hammers were still employed. The most common metal was Iron bronze, and all metal implements and utensils were made of it. was still so rare as to be regarded as one of the precious metals, and was used not for tools, but for making bracelets and other rude ornathe most part hand-made, without the assistance of a wheel.
useful
;

ments.
4.

With regard
figure,

to

the plastic arts, properly so called, having for

of living nature, and particularly of the
sculpture and no painting either Babylonian

their object the

imitation

human

we have no

or Chaklrean of early date, excepting a small bronze figure of a goddess

bearing the legend of Kedormabug,

now

in the

Museum

of the Louvre,

and a fragment of a statuette of alabaster in the British Museum, representing the god Nebo. But a number of those small engraved cylinders of hard stone that were used as seals, cylinders of Babylonian manufacture, with archaic inscriptions in cuneiform characters, must belong to the time of the Chald?ean empire. This fact is certain, at any rate with regard to two the first, one that was in the possession of Sir R. Ker Porter, and is engraved in his "Travels,"* (this was the
:

seal of

King Ur-Hammu)

the second, the cylinder of his son

Ilgi,

now

one of the most valued treasures of the British Museum. In these, art is the same as in the engraved Babylonian stones of much later days, down to the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the Persian dominion, and is
at least as far
5.

We

advanced. have already said that Astronomy had

risen to the

rank of a
times,

real science

among

the people of

Chald^a from the most remote

* Vol.

ii.

pi. 79.


36o and

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

llial its liisl

ailvancc dated hack to the almost legendary epoch of

Nimrod.
than
it

In the most ancient times that the monuments pennit us to

astronomy was more advanced in Babylon and Chaldrea ever was in Egypt. The utmost progress that it was possible to make in this science with the naked eye, unaided by optical instruments, was made by the Chalda;ans. They had even discovered the annual displacement of the equinoctial point on the ecliptic, a discovery usually attributed to the Greek astronomer, Hipparcus. But for want of correct
investigate,

instruments there was an error in their calculation,

was

in that of

Hipparcus.

They had
it

assigned
is fifty.

it

as, moreover, there an annual precession

of thirty seconds, whilst in reality

On

this basis they cal-

culated their great astronomical period of 43,200 solar years, representing, according to their calculation, the total period of the precession

of the ecpiinoxes (the

ti^ue

period being 26,000 years); and the divisions

of this period, called Sar, 3,600, Ner, 600, and Soss, 60, were the foundation of all their chronological computations.

The

science of Arithmetic, indispensable to

all

real

astronomy, was

advanced among this people. We might have inferred this from the establishment of these periods, but we have further and positive proof in a clay tablet discovered in the ruins of Lar.sam, and
also very far

now

preserved in the British

Museum, bearing a

list

of the squares of

fractional numbers, calculated with perfect correctness

from

g'p

to

gg.

Section VII.

Period of Egyptian Preponderance and of

THE Arab Kings.

from about the twenty-second to Ur was the capital of the Chalds;an empire, then embracing the whole of Mesopotamia, and comprising the Assyrians among its subjects. This widely- extended power did not last more than three or four centuries, and Assyria escaped from the dominion of Chaldaea to return to its former state of independence. For the 400 succeeding years the history of Mesopotamia is written on the monuments of Egypt. When, in the second half of the seventeenth century, Thothmes I., the conqueror of Syria, crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish, and, first of all the Pharaohs, poured his legions into Mesopotamia, there no longer existed one great empire embracing the whole basin of the two great Asiatic rivers. Assyria, in the records of the Egyptian campaigns, is represented as having a political existence of its own apart from that of Babylon, and does not even form a kingdom, in the proper sense of the word, as the Rotennu (the Egyptian name for the Assyrians) were then merely a confederation of petty states, governed by princes on an
I.

We

have already shown

that,

the eighteenth centuiy before the Christian era,

EGYPTIAN INVASION.
equality with each other, none of

361

whom

exercised suzerainty over the

and this confederation extended its influence over Osrhoene, or Aramaean Mesopotamia, as well as over the plains extending from the Euphrates to Anti-Lebanon. The Syrian princes of these last countries made part of the league, and held in it the same rank as the
others
;

Assyrian
as

chiefs.

The

successors, therefore, of powerful monarchs, such

Ishmi-Dagan and Hammurabi, were no more than simple "kings of

Babel," and equals of the kings of Nineveh, Asshur (Ellasar), and

Singar.
2.

Thothmes

I.

had made only a

flying

expedition

across

the

Euphrates, and had not attempted in earnest to establish his Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, during the course of the great wars, the history of which we have related as given in the
there.

supremacy

hieroglyphic inscriptions,

Thothmes

III.

subjected

all

Mesopotamia,
the places of

from Nineveh to Babylon, and placed garrisons

strength to ensure the submission of the country.

in all

We

have already

explained in what manner he organised the internal administration of the Asiatic countries subbdued by his arms.* The Pharaohs did

not reduce them to the position of provinces governed directly by Egyptian rulers ; they everywhere protected the petty local sovereigns,

but reduced them to the position of vassals, compelling them to pay tribute and to furnish contingents of troops ; these local princes were obliged to receive their investiture from the king of Egypt and to send
their sons to the court of Thebes, to
tion,

receive there an Egyptian educa-

and to remain as hostages until the time arrived for their being Of course, Pharaoh, as suzerain, reserved to installed on the throne. himself the right of dethroning, and replacing by another, any vassal
prince

who

revolted or gave cause for suspecting his fidelity.

was

exactly the

method employed

in later times

This by the Romans in

Thothmes III. were the dominion of the Chaldaean dynasty. The means of overturning the year 1559 B.C., the date assigned by Berosus for the end of this dynasty,
agrees exactly with his reign.

dealing with allied kingdoms. 3. It is evident that the campaigns of

We may

even regard the year 1559 as

identical with the thirty-first year of

Thothmes, the time, as we know from the inscription on the walls of Karnak, when that king took Berosus says that the Chaldaean prinCes were succeeded by Babylon. nine Arab kings, who reigned 245 years; that is, from 1559 to 1314. Many scholars have attempted to identify these Arab kings with the Khitas of the Egyptian monuments but, however great may be the authority of those who propound this, we are unable to admit the identiIn 1559 B.C. there was no mention of the Khitas, or Hittites, fication.
;

See page 233.

362

ANCIENT TITSTORY OY THE EAST,

in

who had no weight

century
their
thej'
later.

the affairs of Western Asia until

more than

Moreover, the territory of the Khitas and the limits of

power are perfectly defined by the Egyptian historical texts ; sometimes advanced a long way southward on the western bank of the Euphrates, but they did not cross that river the Khitas are never mentioned in Mesopotamia, the people there are always called Rotcnnu. We consider the Arabian kings of Berosus merely as Semitic princes installed at Babylon by the kings of Egypt, to represent them there in
;

the place of the Chaldfean dynasty. Their reign commenced, as we have seen, simultaneously with the first establishment of Egyptian supremacy at Babylon, and they remained in power as long as the substantial authority of Egypt extended east of the Euphrates during the latter part of the eighteenth and the whole of the nineteenth dynasty; and, finally, their power ended in 1314 B.C., that is, just when the annals of Egypt record a general revolt of the Asiatic provinces, coincident with the accession of the twentieth dynasty, a revolt that the last Egyptian conqueror, Ramses III., successfully repressed in Syria and northern Mesopotamia, but does not seem to have ventured to follow up his success as far as Babylon. We must remark, however, that the most recent Assyriological discoveries do not permit us to suppose with Berosus that the Arabian kings occupied the throne during the whole period of Egyptian supremacy the whole interval between 1559 and 13 14. Towards the

close of that period,

in the

and previous

to

13 14 B.C.,

as

we

shall

show

proper place, the Assyrian inscriptions mention some kings of

whose names belong to the Chaldseo-Turanian language. must then admit that in the fifteenth century B.C., possibly in consequence of the troubles in Egypt about the close of the eighteenth dynasty, a Chaldjean royal family supplanted the Arabian dynasty on
Babylon,

We

the throne of Babylon,

4.

still,

however, recognising Egyptian supremacy.

as to the correctness of the designation

We

have some doubts

"Arabian"

for these kings, as that

a very vague and extended meaning, and

to all Semitic tribes.
It

word had in classical antiquity was not unfrequently applied seems more probable that the princes who

were put at the head of the Babylonian government by the Pharaohs were of Canaanitish origin; and the book on " Nabathsean Agriculture," written in Arabic in the tenth century, and containing, amongst a great deal of utterly worthless matter, some valuable extracts from native traditions, or rather from works written under the successors of Alexander, and now lost, mentions at this very period of Babylonian history, a dynasty of Canaanitish kings who, "after long combats, "had overturned and supplanted the Chaldgean sovereigns. The Byzantine chronologer, George Syncellus, mentions, we do not know on what authority, the names of six kings attributed to this so-

ARABIAN DYNASTY.
called

363

Arabian dynasty, and

tlie

purely Babylonian forms of these

names

give rise to serious doubts as to the correctness of the statement.

We

remark that one of them Nabu (the Nabius of Syncellus) has been found stamped on bricks at Erech and Babylon, which seem to the learned M. Oppert to belong certainly to the time of the Arabian kings of Berosus. The British Museum possesses a mutilated statue, in black basalt, of king Nabu, and the Louvre has several inscriptions of the same prince. These monuments certainly belong to a very ancient period, but the titles of the king differ completely from those of the monarchs of the primitive epoch; their modesty seems to indicate a prince who was not an independent sovereign, but merely
nevertheless

may

the vassal of a more powerful suzerain.

5.

To

this

period also must be attributed a most valuable head in

limestone, bearing traces of having been coloured, which

at

was discovered

Babylon, and

is

now

in the

museum

of the Louvre.

This head, rudely

sents an Egyptian.

worked, but vigorously treated, and very lifelike in type, clearly repreThere is an evident intention of imitating the style of Eg\'ptian works, and, moreover, the Pharaonic art at this period of Eg}-ptian supremacy has left monuments in many parts of the Euphrates
Basin.

The Theban

conquerors,

as their inscriptions tell

erected steles to

commemorate

their victories,

us, had and undoubtedly the pro-

gress of explorations

may

bring some of these to

light.

by Thothmes IIL at Carchemish, to secure the passage of the Euphrates, have been discovered, and a great

The

ruins of the fortress built

number of small

objects of Egyptian manufacture bearing hieroglyphic

there.

inscriptions have been found

Some

also have been found in

other places, and even at Babylon itself

It is certain that at this period, Egyptian art exercised a powerful and dominant influence on Assyro-Chalda;an art, then in a state of infancy, In later times Assyrian art emancipated itself almost of barbarism. entirely from this influence, and assumed a distinct originality under the influence of principles diametrically opposed to those that governed the Egyptian sculptor. But the example of the Egyptians who had so many centuries before the Assyrians and Babylonians begun to cultivate true art, was followed for some time after their domination over the country had ceased. This is proved by many monuments, and especially by those remarkable dishes of chased bronze, now in the British Museum, discovered by Mr. Layard at Calah, in the palace of king Asshur-nazir-pal they are certainly older than that king, and may be attributed to the eleventh or twelfth century B.C. The workmanship of these dishes shows us a peculiar style decidedly not
;

Egyptian; but the ornamentation

is
it

entirely so, both as to the figures

is

and the .symbols drawn on them imitated by Assyrian hands.

Egyptian

art

transformed and


364

CHAPTER

II.

THE FIRS7 ASSYRIAN EMPIRE.

Section
I. Foundation of the First Assyrian Empire Fabulous Stories about that Emi-irk Ninus and

Semiramis.
1.

We have now arrived at the period v/here we must place the origin
The Greek writers at this epoch introduce names of Ninus and Semiramis. Diodoms

of the Assyrian Empire.

into history the fabulous

Sicuhis, following Ctesias, has left us a brilliant picture of the reign of

these two personages.

the

The progress of knowledge, the direct study of Assyrian monuments and inscriptions, enable us now to assert
Semiramis nor her husband Ninus ever existed, a fable with no real foundaand must therefore henceforth be erased from the annals of Asia.
is

positively that neither

that their history

tion

entirely mythical

it

But

has obtained credit for so

deserves
it

to in classical literature, that

the contempt

it

many centuries it is so often alluded we cannot pass over it in silence and with we find it necessary to tell the stoiy even
;

while declaring

entirely apocryphal.

2. According to the legend first related to the Greeks by Ctesias, Babylonia had been dismembered by an invasion of the Arabians, when Ninus, chief of the Assyrians, undertook to free the country from the barbarians. Before attacking Babylonia, he organised a large body of picked young men and prepared them by all sorts of exercises for the

made an alliance with an Arab power of Babylon, and with a strong army then attacked the Babylonians. "Their country," the
fatigues

and dangers of war.

He

next

chieftain,

like himself, jealous of the

story taken from Ctesias goes on to say, "contained

cities
;

many

well-peopled

but the inhabitants, mexperienced in the art of war, were easily

subdued and compelled to pay tribute." Ninus took the king and his children prisoners, and put them to death. Thence he marched on Armenia, and terrified the natives by the sack of some towns. Barzanes, the king of that country, finding that he was unable to resist, sent preNinus treated him genesents to the enemy and offered his submission. rously, allowed him to retain his kingdom, and only required him to furnish a contingent of auxiliary troops. The king of Media, next attacked, attempted to resist but, abandoned by his troops, was made prisoner and crucified. In seventeen years Ninus thus made himself master of all the countries between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indus.
;

LEGEND OF SEMIRAMIS.
"

365

from these conquests, to give his dominions a capital worthy of himself, he built Nineveh, and called it after his own name. This city was in the form of a parallelogram, the longest sides were 150 stades, and the shortest ninety; so that the whole circuit of the The towers built to defend walls was 480 stades (about fifty-five miles)!
his return
this wall

On

were 15,000

in

high!
ful

Besides the Assyrians,

number, and were each nearly eighty yards who formed the richest and most powerlargest

part of the population, Ninus admitted into his capital a great

of strangers,

number

and Nineveh soon became the

and most

flourishing city in the world.

"These works of peace

like enterprises
;

did not destroy the taste of Ninus for war-

he undertook the conquest of Bactria, which he had In the course of this war we first enalready once attempted in vain. counter Semiramis, whose name was soon to attain to such great celebrity. She was the daughter of Derceto, or Atergatis, the goddess of reproductive nature, the chief seat of whose worship was at Ascalon.
Derceto had exposed her child, the fruit of a clandestine amour with a young mortal, and a shepherd named Simas had found and brought up Semiramis. Oannes, governor of Syria, had married her for her
beauty, and she had followed

him

to the royal

army

in the Bactrian

An act of bravery raised her to the rank of queen. Ninus, after having vanquished the Bactrians in the field, besieged their capital withwar.
out success,

when Semiramis,
and by a signal

disguised as a soldier, found

means

to

scale the wall,

announced her success

his wife
;

to the troops of

Ninus,

who

then stormed the place.

Ninus, astonished at her braveiy,

a short time afterwards

took her from Oannes and

made her

he died, and left her sole mistress of the empire. " Semiramis, once in possession of supreme power, indulged her Desirous of surpassing the glory of all naturally enterprising genius.
her predecessors, she conceived the idea of building a city in Chaldasa. Stnick with the advantages of the situation of Babylon, she wished to

make

one of the capitals of the Assyrian empire. city was protected," still quoting Ctesias as reported by Diodorus Siculus, "by a wall 360 stades long (more than forty miles),
it

"The

flanked by

many

towers

the Euphrates passed through the middle.

Such was the magnificence of the work, that the width of the walls
permitted six chariots to drive abreast." The height, according to Ctesias, was one hundred yards; but, according to other Greek writers,
thirty

yards only,

and the width

sufficient

for

only

two

chariots.

The same

authors estimate the circumference at 365 stades, because

Semiramis wished it to correspond with the number of days in the These walls were built of sun-dried bricks cemented with year. asphalt. The towers, of proportionate height and size, were only 250
in

number.

366

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

" \Vhen the first partof tlie Wf)rk was finished, Semiramis fixed on the place where the Euphrates was narrowest, and threw across it a bridge She contrived to build i*i the bed of the stream five stades long. pillars twelve feet apart, the stones of which were joined with strong iron cramps fixed into the mortises with melted lead. The side of these pillars towards the run of the stream was built at an angle, so as to divide the water, cause it to run smoothly past and lessen the pressure On these pillars were laid beams of cedar against the massive pillars. cypress, with large trunks of palm trees, so as to form a platform and The queen then built at great cost on either bank of thirty feet wide. the river a quay with a wall as broad as that of the city, and i6o stades
long (nearly twenty miles).
built a castle flanked

In front of each end of the bridge she

the bricks used in

by towers, and surrounded by triple walls. Before these buildings were baked she modelled on them

figures of animals of every kind, coloured to represent living nature.

Semiramis then constructed another prodigious work; she had a huge dug in some low ground. When it was finished, the river was diverted into it, and she at once commenced building in the dry bed of the river a covered way leading from one This work was completed in seven days, and the castle to the other. river then was allowed to return to its bed, and Semiramis could then She pass dry shod under water from one of her castles to the other. placed at the two ends of the tunnel gates of bronze, said by Ctesias to
basin, or square reservoir,

be still in existence in the time of the Persians. Lastly, she built in the midst of the city the temple of the god Bel. " Semiramis, after having completed these works in Babylonia, made She subjected the an expedition against the Medes, who had revolted. country afresh, and left there an everlasting monument of her presence.

At the

foot of

Mount Bagistan
is

she built a palace.

One

of the faces of
;

formed of perpendicular rocks of enormous height on this rock she caused to be sculptured her own likeness, surrounded by those of a hundred of her guards, with an inscription recounting her achievements." Diodorus attributes to her also the foundation of Ecbathe mountain
tana,

where the kings of Assyria were, he

says, in

after times in the

habit of passing every spring.

As

the city required water, and there

at great
all

was no sufficient spring in the cost and by enormous works, For this purpose parts of it. and dug a canal, ten feet wide a lake on the other side of the

neighbourhood, she conducted,

she tunnelled through

a plentiful supply of pure water into

Mount Orontes,

and forty

feet deep,

communicating with
all

mountain.
her posbuilt,

From Media, Semiramis

sessions in Asia.

passed on to Persia, and visited

In Armenia she

near Lake Van, a city with an

immense

palace.

tains, levelled rocks,

Wherever she went, and constructed

says Ctesias, she pierced

large

mounIn the

and good roads.


LEGEND OF SEMIRAMIS.
plains she constructed artificial hills for the

367

tombs of the generals who

died during the expedition, or for the foundation of her

new

cities.

same author, she also subdued Egypt and the greater part of Ethiopia. She also undertook an expedition against Stratobatis, the king of India, attracted by the riches of that country.
According
to

the

the Indians, having heard of the extensive preparations of the Baby-

lonian queen, assembled a considerable force, and then defied Semiramis

which he reproached her with the immorality of her and threatened, if he were victorious, to crucify her. Semiramis did not, however, abandon her intention of attacking the Indian king. But his war elephants secured the victory to Stratobatis, the army of Semiramis was put to flight,, and two-thirds of it destroyed. After this defeat she retired to her own kingdom, and did not again quit it. She devoted herself to the completion of her great works and such were the enterprise and renown of this queen that, after her time, according to Strabo, every great work in Asia was popularly attributed to her. Alexander found her name, it is said, inscribed on the frontiers of Scythia, then considered the extreme verge of the habitable world. The pretended text of this inscription has been preserved by Semiramis herself speaks, and thus expresses herself Polyoenus. "Nature gave me a woman's body, but my deeds have equalled those I ruled the empire of Ninus, which reaches of the most valiant men.
letter, in
life,

by a

private

eastward to the river

Sogdians.
Before

Hinaman

(the

Indus); southward, to the land

of incense and myrrh (Arabia Felix);

northward, to the Saces and

I have seen four, no one had approached, so far were they distant. I compelled the rivers to run where I wished, and directed them to the places where I made barren land fertile, by watering it with my they were required.

me no

Assyrians had seen a sea;

that

rivers.

built

impregnable

fortresses.

With

iron tools I

made roads
where the

across impassable rocks; I opened roads for

my

chariots,

very wild beasts had been unable to pass.

pations
I

In the midst of these occu-

and love." Ninyas was plotting against her, she formed the resolution of abdicating. Far from punishing the conspirator, she left the government of the empire to him, directed all the governors to obey the new sovereign, and disappeared, changed into a dove. She was worshipped as a goddess.
have found time
for pleasure

Having learned

that her son

3.

Such

is

the legend that Ctesias

is

first

related to the Greeks.

it
;

We
in

repeat that there

not one word of truth in

the Assyrian

ments contradict it on all points. Such personages as Semiramis belong in no way to real history ; they never existed
fact.

monuNinus and

Ninus, as the

name

clearly indicates,

is

only a personification of
all
its

the whole history of the city of Nineveh, and of

this

power; under

name, popular

stories

grouped together

all

the exploits and conquests


368
of
all

ANCIENT TTTSTORV OF THE EAST.

Assyrian kings, and even (for these legends always have a tento magnify) conquests that

no Ninevite king ever made. Just as the wliole of the military exploits of the Assyrians have lieen grouped round the name of Ninus, although also attributed to Semiramis, so all the useful or gigantic works, whatever their origin, executed at different periods by various Asiatic sovereigns, have contriljuted to the glory of To her have been attributed all the buildings the name of Semiramis. of Babylon, from the Tower of Babel, identical with the Temple of Bel, to those of the age of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, even lire

dency

works of king Deioces

at

Ecbatana, and the great sculptures at

Mount

Bagistan (Behistun), in Media.*

queen,

The name of Semiramis has been borrowed from a really historical who lived five centuries after the period where the legend places

Sammuramat, wife of Bin-lik-his III., a queen had some important works executed at Babylon, but who in no who In point of fact, other respect resembles the portrait drawn by Ctesias. with all modern scholars, we mu.st recognise in the famous Semiramis one of the mythological personages of the religion of the Euphrates valley. The story itself speaks of her as a goddess, for it makes her the daughter of Derceto, and mentions her final metamorphosis and
the fabulous Semiramis,

the worship subsequently addressed to her.

of her character,

All the fundamental features

and of the adventures attributed to her, agree in showing that she was only the personification of the heroic form of the great goddess of the Babylonian religion, uniting in herself the most apparently opposite attributes, a patroness both of pleasure and of war, and who had for one of her principal symbols a dove. With her husband, Ninus the warrior, and her son Ninyas, the effeminate prince shut up in his harem, Semiramis represented on earth exactly the supreme triad of Babylonian worship. This idea, too, was not originally Assyro-Chaldrean; it was borrowed, as was also the greater part of their religion, from the Cushites ; the same group of mythical personages being placed by popular tradition at the head of all primitive dynasties, wherever the first steps in civilisation are due to the Cushites, in India as well as in Mesopotamia. 4. Moreover, the legend of Ninus and Semiramis is by no means
of early origin.
Berosus,
It
is

neither Assyrian nor Babylonian, but Persian.

who compiled from

it,

the

official

archives

of

Assyria and

Chaldrea, was ignorant of

as also

was Herodotus,

in general so well

* The sculptures at Behistun, here referred to, are probably those described by Sir R. Ker Porter {Travels, vol. ii. p. 151, seq.) as still exis'ing, though veiy much timewom and barely distinguishable, on the same rock surface as the famous sculpture and inscriptions of Darius, Tr. but in a lower position.

LEGEND OF SEMIRAMIS.
acquainted with traditions, and

369

who had been

at

Babylon and heard

from the Chaldeans the history of their country. It was at the Persian court that Ctesias, physician to the king Artaxerxes Mnemon, had
heard

by him with implicit faith, and hastened to make it known to his countrymen, as preferable to the statements of Herodotus. It must be admitted that he was unfortunate in receiving his information from the Persians, for these people have always been,
this story, received

and

still

true history.

are (like their neighbours the Indians), incapable of recording The historical instinct is entirely wanting in the famous

annals engraven on the rocks at Behistun, where Darius records the days and months of the chief events of his reign, but has forgotten to mention theyc-ars. The same defect is apparent among the modern
Persians, the only people

who have no

historian but the poet, and

who

have no record of their past history but a "Book of Kings," of an This historical value about equal to that of our middle-age ballads.
has frequently struck the author when in conversation with Persians who passed for men of letters in their own country, but who had the What could strangest possible ideas as to the history of modern Asia.

be the value of statements as to their conquered enemies furnished by a people who, in their own history, had soon forgotten the great Cyrus, the founder of their empire, and who represented, as closely related, personages separated by a distance of seventeen centuries. 5. The legend believed at the court of Persia as to Ninus and Semiramis, and generally as to the history of the Assyrian empire,

probably partly originated from motives easy to penetrate, and wliich will become apparent in the course of this history. He had none of the warNinyas, it is said, succeeded his mother. predecessors occupied solely with his pleasures, like character of his
;

he led a peaceful and obscure

jects in obedience,

life

buried in his palace

he confined

himself to ensuring the security of his empire, and maintaining his subby keeping on foot a numerous army annually levied
in the several provinces.

He assembled the troops near Nineveh, gave to each nation a governor devoted to himself, and at the end of each year dismissed these soldiers and replaced them by an equal number of fresh men. This constant renewal of the army prevented
the formation of too intimate relations between the soldiers and their commanders, and precluded any plot against the sovereign. Moreover,

by rendering himself invisible, he hid from all eyes the voluptuous life he led ; and, as though he had been a god, no one dared to speak evil of His successors, down to Sardanapalus, adopted the same line of him. conduct, and thus these kings were enveloped in the most complete For thirteen centuries one peaceably succeeded the other, obscurity. their power was never disi^uted, and the extent of their dominions was
never diminished.

B B


370

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

policy of the Persian mrmarclis

The

was

directly interested in thus

attributing to the highest antiquity the origin of a system of Asiatic

goveniment, where obedience was ensured by the respect due to the mere name of the king, even when he was occupied entirely witli his
pleasures,

and secluded from sight

in his

palace; a government mainits

tained also by the suspicious policy that did not allow

various foreign

subjects to acquire perfect experience as soldiers, or to

become accus-

but sent to each province representatives of its ov,n[i As these Persians pretended to have inherited the absolute power. rights of the Assyrian empire, by attributing such a character to that

tomed

to

camp

life,

empire, they gave to their

the sanction
legitimate.

own authority, established by force of arms, of a tradition many centuries old, and a character really Tliis intention will become still more manifest if we re-

the extent attributed by the legend of Ctesias to the dominions and to the duration of the Assyrian empire. The conquests of Ninus and Semiramis very far exceed those of any, even the most powerful, Assyrian monarch, but they coincide exactly wth the extent of the Achgemenian empire after the time of Darius Hystaspes. As to the question of duration, the reader will be able to judge, from what has been said, how absurd, how contrary to historj', is this tradition of an empire dating back to thirteen centuries before the revolution that overthrew Sardanapalus of a dymasty whose twentieth generation was contemporary with the Trojan war, and had suffered from no dismemberment, nor even revolt of its subjects, and had never had occasion to appear in arms before them. But this number of centuries represents

member

almost exactly the total period of the duration of the various dynasties that succeeded each other, from the time of the establishment of the Chaldsean dynasty, properly so called, to the destruction of Nineveh in
the time of Sardanapalus by the

Medes or Babylonians.

Thus the

whole history of Mesopotamia was represented by the Persian kings for the instruction of their subjects, as the history of one and the same empire, whose unity had been unbroken and authority uncontested, and whose heirs and successors they themselves were. In this way among many nations official history has been wTitten for political purposes.

Section

II.

First Assyrian Dynasty.

B. C. )

{Fifteenth to Eleventh Centuries

I.

We

Ctesias, in order to

have been compelled to speak of the legendary stories of prove their fabulous character. But we have said
subject,

quite

enough on the
it

and

it is

time to return to real history, as

we

learn

from the study of the original monuments of the Assyrian

kings.

FIRST ASSYRIAN DYNASTY.

371

Modem
rosus,

scholars,

who have devoted

themselves to the study of

Assyrian history, generally place (according to the statements of Be-

confirmed by a passage in Herodotus) the foundation of the

Ninevite empire in the year 1314 B.C.; but the facts stated by Berosus apply to Babylon, and not to Assyria itself. The date 1314 is, then,
that of the time

when

the kings of Assyria

became masters of Baby-

lonia, not of the time

The
our

positive evidence of the

that the

when they established themselves at Nineveh. monuments proves beyond doubt the fact Assyrian monarchy commenced in the fifteenth century before
Egypt was supreme over the whole Tigro-Euphrates
were but

era, whilst

Basin.
Its beginnings, like those of all other things in the world,

small.

At the commencement of the dynasty it must have been simply the little kingdom of Nineveh, such as we find it in the confederation of the Rotennu. Far from commencing by conquests, such as those attributed to Ninus, it grew great by slow degrees, absorbed gradually other small neighbouring states of the same race, and thus united the
ground, extended

whole Assyrian nation under one sceptre; and then, still gaining its frontier on the Chaldsean side, and strove to unite The Armenian historian, all Mesopotamia in one united monarchy. Moses of Chorene, has preserved a most valuable document on this subject, that must have come from an ancient and authentic source this is a list of names that he has taken for those of the first kings of In spite of Assyria Ninus, Chalaos, Arbelus, Ancbos, and Babios. some alterations, we recognise at a glance these names as being, not those of men, but of important and well-known cities, enumerated in the order in which they were incorporated with the states of the AsNineveh, Calah, Arbela, Nipur, and Babylon. Thus syrian monarchs this invaluable fragment, preserved by a historian who did not understand its true meaning, assists us in ascertaining the progress of the Assyrian empire and the successive extensions of its limits. 2. The history of the early period of the Ninevite kingdom, and of

its

connection with Babylon,

is

related in an invaluable tablet in the

historical

British

Museum, a fragment of a
;

manual

for

the use of
it

Assyrian students
as yet translated in London,
facts.
;

part of this only has been published,

and none of

the author has, however, carefully studied the original

to give

and we now proceed

an account of the principal

The

record unhappily does not

commence with the monarchy, and we

;

therefore

do not know

its

founder

but the

first

prince of

whom

it

speaks,

reigned about 1450 Assyrian royalty.

B.C.,

a date not far from that of the establishment of

called Asshur-bel-Nishishu,

He was

and made a

treaty with Karatadash, king of Babylon.

This treaty was confirmed

between

his

successor,

Bushur-Asshur, B B 2

and Burnaburyash, king of

372
Babylon.
ai>iieais

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Next on
to

tliv tlirone of Nineveh came Asshurubalat, who He gave his daughter in have reigned about 1400 B.C. marriage to Ihirnaburyash, and his gi'andson, Karaliardasli, ascended But he was soon assassithe throne at Babylon while still quite young. nated by a certain Nazibugash, wlio usurj^ed tlie throne. Then the

Assyrians

made an

expedition into Baljyloiiia under the guidance of

II.,

Asshurubalat, put Nazibugash to death, and installed Kurigalzu

These two names seem to be entirely Elamite, and we have already met with them among the successors of Kedornakhunta, but the common Turanian origin of the Chaldoeans of Babylonia, and of the Susianians, explains the occurrence of similar names among the people. There is here a short space of one or two reigns at most, of which we know nothing, and then we find the names of four kings on various monuments, of the incidents of whose reigns we know nothing, Bellikhish [or Belnirari], Budiel, Binlikhish I. [or Binnirari], and Shalmaneser I. [Shalmanuashir]. The son of this last king was Tuklat-Samdau I., who, as many Assyrian texts tell us, was the conqueror of Babylonia and Chaldsea. Sennacherib [Sinakherib], in one of his inscriptions, says that this king reigned 600 years before him, thus bringing the date up to about 1300 B.C. and fully coinciding with the date 1314 given by
son of Burnaburyash, on the throne.

Berosus for the establishment of the authority of the Assyrian princes

at Babylon.
3.

The

metropolis of Chaldsea was then, from the time of Tuklatto the position of a

dependency of the Assyrians. But was this city simple provincial town subject to a governor appointed by treated as a the king. Babylon retained its own native princes who succeeded each other by hereditary right, and were vassals only of the king of Nineveh. It was the constant policy of the Assyrian monarchs in the government of conquered countries to maintain the native princes on the throne, but to reduce them to the position of vassals, thus constituting them, as we may say, hereditary satraps. This system was carried even further, and one of its principles (adopted in later times by the Persians) was to foster the regular hereditary transmission of power and of legitimate right to the throne amongst the royal families of conquered countries. When
neither then, nor at any time under the kings of Assyria,

Samdan, reduced

a vassal king revolted, his Assyrian suzerain treated him personally

with the most extreme severity

flayed alive

but

his son

not unfrequently he was impaled, or and legitimate heir was always installed in
after

the vacant throne.

Under such a system, when immediately

making such

example of a revolted prince, the suzerain could place the government in the hands of his son, without taking into account the hatred and desire for revenge that might be excited in his mind, revolts must have been frequent, and the unity of the empire
a terrible

SUBJUGATION OF BABYLON.
must, more or
less,

373

have depended on the firmness of the hand that held

;

the reins of supreme power

the reconquest of

some province or other

must constantly have been

the signal for rebellion.

in

hand, for they periodically attempted to

free themselves, the least sign of

weakness in the sovereign state giving Thus, to confine ourselves to the affairs of
that great city

Babylonia and Chaldaja

suzerainty of Nineveh,
precarious.

its

if

was so
at
all

early subjected to the

submission was

times imperfect

and

Again

and again, in the annals of Assyria,

in revolt,

we

find tlie

Babylonian princes
for a

attempting to reconquer their independence,

constantly defeated, and, after each failure, again

making preparations

new

attempt.

There was, moreover, between these vassals and their suzerains a The Ninevite titles, as we see by the monuments. kings styled themselves " Vicegerents of the Gods " at Babylon, and
curious dispute about

they did not wish to permit the princes

themselves sovereigns. themselves

called only

These, on their

who reigned in that city own monuments, always

to call

called

"Kings

of Babylon"; but at Nineveh they were officially

Kings of Kar-Dunyash, or Lower Chaldaea. But if Tuklat-Samdan, after taking Babylon, permitted a native king still to occupy the throne, it is evident that he changed the royal family. For, from this date, their names, instead of being Chaldjeo-Turanian

we have previously mentioned, have a purely Semitic characand are borrowed from the so-called Assyrian language. 4. Tuklat-Samdan was succeeded by his son, Belkudurussur. Babylon revolted under this king, and the Chaldjean king, Binbaliddin, after having driven the foreigners from his dominions, invaded Assyria. Belkudurussur was killed in the contest, and the Babylonians carried off mnnerous trophies, amongst others the royal signet of Tuklat-Samdan. Binbaliddin is known from many inscriptions to have constructed the fortifications of Nipur, and made it one of the outworks of Babylon.
like those
ter,

king then mounted the throne named Adarpalashir (Adar, the Assyrian Hercules, protects his son), of whom it is said in an inscription
that

" he organised the country of Asshur, and

that he

first

established

the armies of Assyria."

Binbaliddin having attempted again to invade

of the reign of Adarpalashir,

Assyria at the

commencement

was defeated

in a great battle

This king, like his predeunder the walls of Ellasar. cessors, must still have been partially under the yoke of the Egyptians, as even after the termination of the great Pharaonic campaigns, they continued to claim a supremacy over Assyria, that, day by day, became
less real.

We have seen already, by a distinct statement in an inscription, that under Ramses XIL, about 1150, the king of Egypt still continued to but we receive, with more or less regularity, tribute from Mesopotamia date, all supremacy and have also seen that almost immediately after this
;

374
even
high
all

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

pretensions to
it

ceased in consequence of the usurpation of the

priest,

Hcr-Ilor.*

The king

of Assyria, in whose time

tiiis

event

occurred, must have been Asshurdayan, son and successor of Adarpalashir;

it is

in fact, to

the termination of the last vestiges of foreign

dominion, that we must naturally attribute the expressions ajjplied to him in the inscription where all these kings are mentioned. " He bore the supreme sceptre, he ennobled the nation of Bel ... he outshone all who had preceded him." We know, moreover, that this king invaded Babylonia
country,
in order to

take revenge for the defeat of his grandfather, and

caused his supreme authority to be recognised in the whole of that

whence he brought back immense booty.

(trusting in
lifts

His son Mutakkil-Nabu

came

Asshur-rishishi
'

(Asshur
'

his

head)

Nebo), succeeded him; next " a powerful king,"

;

says the inscription,

who

attacked revolted countries, and annexed

the lands of the whole world."

revolt of a Babylonian prince,
ussur],

We

know

also that

he repressed the
Ijut

named Nebuchadnezzar [Nabukudur:

expressions

who on two we have

occasions attempted to invade Assyria

the

quoted, prove that he aggrandised the empire by

I.

new

conquests.

His son, Tiglath-pileser

[Tuklat-palashar], was also

a conqueror, who rendered himself illustrious during his tenure of power. A long inscription on a cylinder of baked clay, of which four
copies were found in the foundations of a temple at Ellasar (Kileh

Sherghat), relates the campaigns of the

inscription has

first

part of his reign.

selected

This

by the Royal it was Asiatic Society as a test of the value of the method employed in the translation of Assyrian inscriptions by the most eminent Assyriologists. Copies of the inscription (then unpublished) were in 1857 supplied to Genera! Sir H. C. Rawlinson, Mr. Fox Talbot, Dr. Hincks, and M. Oppert, and the translations made by each of them separately were
found substantially to agree.

become celebrated because

the

The story in this inscription is very far from agreeing, either with mode of life attributed by Ctesias to the successors of the fabulous
it

Ninyas, or with the political geography of the period, such as

in his tale.

appears

We
kings

find

from the inscription that Tiglath-pileser commenced, in the

very year of his accession to the throne, by conquering the Moschi in

the neighbourhood of the Black Sea,
at their

head, to the assistance of

who had come, with their five the people of Commagene who
that he subjugated the latter

had revolted against Assyrian nde, and

country afresh.

He

next

turned his arms against

;

the
the

districts

of

Armenia, situated above the sources of the Tigris

same year

See page 272.

TIGLATH-PILESER

I.

375

leading his troops in another direction, he crossed the

Lower Zab,

penetrated into the mountains, and subdued some tribes of Chalonitis

were directed to the north-east ; he relates his battles with a great number of absolutely unknowoi tribes, who appear to have occupied the neighbourhood of Lake Urumiyeh, and the firontier between Armenia and Media, and at the close of these battles to have penetrated as far as the " Upper," the Caspian, Sea. Finally, in the fourth year of his reign, Tiglath-pileser undertook the conquest of the land of Aram where they did not worship Asshur my Lord." The first of his race, he crossed the Euphrates, possessed himself of Carchemish, imposed tribute on the Khatti, the Khita of the Egj'ptian inscriptions, the northern Hittites of the Bible, and advanced In the midst of as far as the mountain chain of Amanus (Kumani). these great wars he did not neglect the arts of peace ; by his orders the temples of the city of Ellasar, where was his usual residence, were rebuilt in magnificent style, amongst others the great temple of Oannes, originally constructed by Ishmi-dagan, and which king Asshurdayan had taken down in order to rebuild; but the work had been stopped for
efforts
'
'

and Western Media. His next mihtary

seventy years.

The
British

cylinder ends \vith the fourth year of his reign; but an inscrip-

tion, still partly

unpublished, on a ft-agment of an obelisk, also in the

Museum, shows us Tiglath-pileser some years later, advancing with his army to Lebanon, and becoming master of Aradus. He
entered a vessel of that city to fish in the sea, as no Assyrian king before

him had ever done, and he

cesses,

records as one of his most brilliant exploits

that he killed a dolphin wdth his

the princes of Tanis,

Solomon, sent an embassy to Egypt," says the inscription, "sent him as an extraordinary present a crocodile from his river and whales from the great sea." To these distant wars succeeded serious troubles in Babylonia, also mentioned in the tablet on the relations between the two countries, now Mardukidinakhe, king of Babylon, revolted, in the British Museum. and proclaimed his independence ; Tiglath-pileser attempted to reduce him to obedience by invading Chaldsca, but was repulsed, and Mardukidinakhe, after gaining the first battles, entered Assyria, and took by The great Sennacherib boasts, in an assault the city of Hekali. brought back to Nineveh, after defeating the inscription, of having Babylonians, the statues of the gods taken from Hekali by !Mardukidinakhe 418 years before, that is. about iioo B.C. Tiglath-pileser, after his defeat, did not assume the offensive for several years, but did so at last with great success, as he took successively His eldest son, Asshur-belDur-Kurigalzu, Sippara, and Babylon.
'

owm hand. At the news of his sucwho also had made an alliance with request his friendship. The king of
'


376
knla, omlcd

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

llie

\\ar l>y a

treaty of peace,

by

wliicli

Na1)iisliapil<zir,

successor of Manlukidiiiaklie,

recognised the political su]iremacy of

Nineveh over Bal)ylon.

dedicatory inscription

This Assliur-lielkala was the author of a

a niutihitcd statue of a goddess found
ISritisli

on
the

at

Nineveh, and

now

in

Museum.
Sliamslii-Bin H., of
principal temples of

5. He was succeeded by his younger brotlicr, whom we know only that he repaired one of the

Next comes Asshura-bamar, an unfortunate king, who al)Out 1080 or 1070 was conquered in a decisive battle by the king of the Hittitcs, and lost all the conquests of Tiglath-pileser I. beyond the Euphrates. It was this event that facilitated, a short time afterwards, the formation of the empire of David and Solomon. But the dynasty to which Asshura-bamar belonged never recovered from the effects of this disaster. At the end of a short time, the superintendent of the royal
Nineveh.
gardens, Belkatirassu (Bel has strengthened

my
new

hand,)* the Belitaras

line of kings.

of the Greek authore, put himself at the head of a conspiracy, de-

throned his master, and became the head of a

Section

III.

First Kings of the Dynasty of Belitaras ASSHUR-NAZIRPAL. IO7O 905 B.C.

I.

Belkatirassu, or

Beletaras,
his

is

called

"the

origin of royalty"

in

an inscription of one of

descendants, from which

we

learn the

head of the dynasty. Shalmaneser II. [Shalmanuashir] reigned immediately after him, and was the original founder of the magnificent palace in the city of Calah (now Nimrud),
series of the early successors of this

by Asshur-nazirpal. His successor was called Irib-Bin next came Asshur-idinakhe (Asshur has given brothers), and then a third Shalmaneser [Shalmanuashir], and a king named Asshur-edililani (Asshur is the arbiter Of these kings we know no certain fact nor date. We of the gods). may conjecture with confidence, that some of them were the princes who possessed themselves of Media, and reunited it to the Assyrian empire. It is certain that this country had not been conquered in the time of Tiglath-pileser I., and we find it, under all kings subsequent to this period, enumerated among the dependencies of the empire. With Binlikhish II. [or Binnirari], chronology becomes certain the Assyrians had a special magistrate who gave his name to the year, as did the archons at Athens, and the consuls at Rome ; and we possess
rebuilt afterwards
;
;

* By rendering the ideographic character for "hand" by a less frequently used synonym, we may read this name Belidiarassu a form even nearer to the Beletaras of the Greek writers.

"

ASSHUR-NAZIRPAL.

377

a nearly complete list of these Eponyms, with the names of the kings with whose reigns they correspond, commencing with Binlikhish II., a
list in

cuneifoiTn characters

on

tablets of

baked clay forming part

years,

of the

British

Museum

collection.

Binlikhish

reigned twenty years, from

956 to 936;

his son,

Tuklat-Samdan

11., six

from 935 to 930.

is

The
by

annals of this

last

king have not been found, but he

referred to

he made one campaign amongst others towards the sources of the Tigris, in the mountains, and there set up a stele commemorative of his passage. 2. Although we have no documents of the reign of this king, those of his son, Asshur-nazirpal (Asshur protects his son), have been found The great palace of Calah (Nimrud), with its magniin abundance. ficent halls decorated with sculptures, the great pyramid, used for astronomical observations, and the consecrated sanctuaiy at the top, explored by Mr. Layard, was rebuilt by this king; and relics of him have everywhere been found in the monument that was, as he himself said, "the glory of his name." In all the museums of Europe his bas-reliefs are to be seen, generally disfigured by a belt of inscription, containing in all cases the same text running across the figures of the sculpture. Gigantic human-headed bulls, and not less colossal lions, bear his texts engraved across their limbs. A stele, now in London, contains the narrative of his campaigns; the same story, but at greater length, is found on an immense stone forming the threshold of the temple of Adar-Samdan, the Assyrian Hercules, at Calah this is the longest
his successors as a great
;
:

wamor

known Assyrian
left

inscription.
is

Asshur-nazirpal
us his statue,

the only one of the Assyrian monarchs

in the British

who has
;

now

Museum.
mace.

It is

standing

in

one

hand he holds a
across his chest.

sickle, in the otlier a

The

inscription is written

"Asshur-nazirpal, the great king, the powerful king, the king of the
legions, king of Assyria, son of

Tuklat-Samdan, great king, king of

the legions, king of Assyria, son of Binlikhish, great king, powerful

king, king of Assyria.

"He

possessed the countries from the banks of the Tigris even to

;

Lebanon

he subjected to his power the great seas

ajid all lands,

from

the rising even to the going

down

of the sun.

ascended the throne on the 3. This son of Tuklat-Samdan II. 2nd July, 930, a day marked by a partial eclipse of the sun, visible at Nineveh, a fact more than once mentioned on his monuments, and He remained regarded as a very favourable augury for the new reign. on the throne for twenty-five years, from 930 to 905. His reign secured the success of the Assyrians of the new dynasty, and gratified their desire for dominion over Asia, and especially the western countries. The official narrative of the wars of this king up to the twentieth

378

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

year of his reign, engraved on the monolith at Calah, gives us a clear idea of his warlike and ferocious character. He invarial)ly caused his

and in an inscription on a stele set up over the ruins of a city he had destroyed, he said, *' Over these ruins my image broods, in wreaking my vengeance I liave found satisfaction. Not one single year of his reign passed unmarked by a military expedition. The greater number were into the mountains of Armenia, to Commagene and Pontus, where the Moschi were then supreme, and finally into Media, and probably also part of Western Persia. But the names of the tribes and districts apparently belonging to these latter countries cannot as yet be identified with the names as given by other authorities; and therefore it is impossible, in the present state of knowledge, to determine how far eastward he carried his arms. Other campaigns took place on the banks of the Euphrates, and he subdued
rebellious vassals to be flayed alive;
all

the right bank, the Irak Arabi of our days, then divided into several

flourishing kingdoms.

Asshur-nazirpal was also called on to repress,

first

especially during the

years of his reign, numerous revolts in the

north of Assyria and in

Lower

Chaldtea, and he punished the rebels

with implacable severity. In 925 he conquered Nabubaliddin, king of Babylon, his brother Zabdan, and his general, Belbaliddin, who had had the temerity to rebel, and to send help to the people of Sukhi; on the eastern bank of
the Euphrates.

The

chastisement inflicted in consequence of this rash

the Babylonians remained quiet for the re-

attempt was so

gi'eat that

mainder of

his reign.

Crossing the Euphrates, Asshur-nazirpal reduced to obedience all Northern Syria, the land of the Khatti, or Hittites, the chains of Amanus (Kumani), and the basin of the Orontes (Aranta). Although he calls himself " Master of Lebanon," and states that in the year corresponding to 916, having himself visited Phoenicia, he advanced to the coast of the Mediterranean, to receive tribute from the cities of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Aradus, he does not seem to have actually subjugated the Phoenician cities, but merely to have made a passing In this direction he did not dare to venture descent on the counti-y. too far the kingdoms of Judah and Israel were still too powerful, and by forming a coalition they might have opposed a very formidable resistance, as Jehoshaphat and Ahab, his contemporaries, had both been able successfully to carry on war against the Aramseans of the
;

kingdom of Damascus,

whom

also Asshur-nazirpal did not attack.


SHALMANESER
IV.
379

Section IV. From Shalmaneser IV. to Binlikhish and

Sammuramat
I.

(Semiramis).
B.C.

905828

were surpassed by those of his who reigned from 905 to 865. From the commencement of the reign of this king Assyria begins to be closely and constantly connected with Bible history, and to bear Shalmaneser was the invalualDle testimony to its minute accuracy. builder of the great central palace at Calah (now Ninrrud), excavated by Mr. Layard. There have been found the inscriptions relating his annals the most important is on an obelisk of black basalt, now in the British Museum, containing a summary of all the campaigns undertaken by him, or by his orders. He fortified, to guard Assyria proper, on the frontier of Chaldsea, always restless and disposed to rebel, the city of Asshur, or Ellasar (now Kileh Sherghat), as is proved by the inscriptions with his name on the bricks of the walls, and by the legend on the pedestal of an unfortunately mutilated statue. The greater part of the expeditions of Shalmaneser IV. succeeding each other year after year, were directed, like those of his father, sometimes to the north, into Armenia and Pontus sometimes to the cast, into Media, never completely subdued; sometimes to the south, into Chaldcea, where revolts were of constant occurrence and finally westward, towards Syria and the region of Amanus. In this direction he advanced further than his predecessors, and came into contact with some personages mentioned in Bible history. The part of his annals relating to the campaigns that brought him into collision with the kings
exploits of Asshur-nazirpal son,

The

Shalmaneser (Shalmanuashir) IV.,

of

Damascus and

Israel possesses peculiar interest for us,

much

greater

than that attaching to the narrative of any other wars.

Therefore,

though we have simply mentioned the latter, we will quote what Shalmaneser, in his official records, himself says about his campaigns in Southern Syria " In my sixth campaign (900) I advanced towards the cities of the banks of the Balikh (the Bellas of the classical geographers, rising in the neighbourhood of Edessa, and flowing into the Euphrates above
:

Thapsacus).
Syria."

slew

Giammu,

the chief of their

city.

passed the

Euphrates in a ferry-boat, and received tribute from the kings of

"At
their

this

time Benhidri of Damascus, Sakhulina of Hamath, the

kings of Syria, and those of the sea coast, trusting to the rapidity of

With the help of them I conquered Asshur, the great master, my lord, I fought against them. I took from them their chariots, their cavalry, their arms, and
movements, advanced to give
battle.
;

me

I destroyed 20,500 of their soldiers."

"

38o
It
is in this

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

battle, fought at

Karkar, that the stele discovered near the

record of
the Bible

sources of the Tigris, enumerating the confederate forces, mentions the

presence of " 10,000

narrati\e

men

the temporary alliance of

(i

of Ahab of Israel," an invahiablc Ahab and Benhidri mentioned in

Kings

xx. 34,

and

xxii. 1).

Among
names

the

])rinces

leagued

against the Assyrians

we

also find the

of Matan-baal, king of

Ammon,

Arvad, Adoni-baal, king of Sidon, Baasa, son of Rehob, king of and consequently vassal of Ahab, and lastly an Arab sheik,

named Djcndib.
" In my tenth campaign " (896), says another inscription, " I crossed the Euphrates for the eighth time. I destroyed the cities of Sangar and Carchemish; I demolished them and burnt them with fire Benhidri of Damascus, Sakhulina of Hamath, and twelve kings of the sea coast, puttmg trust in their they advanced towards me to give battle. I fought with them and conquered them I captured their chariots, their
.
.

arms.

They took

to flight to save their lives."

"In my

crossed for the ninth

eleventh campaign (895) I marched out of Nineveh; I time the Euphrates in a ferry-boat ... I advanced

towards Mount
I

Amanus
I

attacked the land of Irak

descended

towards Hamath;

occupied Astamaku and eighty-nine other towns;

made

a great slaughter there, and led

away

the inhabitants captive.

Damascus, Sakhulina of Hamath, and the twelve kings of the coast had confidence in their they advanced I put them to flight towards me to give battle. 10,000 soldiers fell before my arms I captured their chariots, their cavalry, and their
that time Benhidri of
.

At

munitions of war."

" In

my

fourteenth year" (892), says the king, in another place, " I

made enumeration

of my vast and numberless territories ; I crossed the Euphrates by a ford with 120,000 men. Then Benhidri of Damascus, Sakhulina of Hamath, and the twelve kings of the Upper and Lower Coast,

who had assembled

;

their innumerable armies,

to flight
;

advanced

to

meet

me.

I fought

them and put them

I

captured their chariots,

their cavalry

took their .arms.

They

fled to save their lives.

898 and 897, by a disand of all Chaldiea, Mardukinaddinshu, had been dethroned by his illegitimate brother, Mardukbelusati. Shalmaneser marched towards the Lower Euphrates to re-instate Mardukinaddinshu. The war lasted two years, and the decisive operation was the siege of a town called Gananat, not

These Syrian wars had been interrupted

in

turbance in Babylon.

The

local sovereign of that great city

at present identified.

It

was not

till

the second year of the siege that

Shalmaneser entered Babylon, and dethroned the usurper.

campaign of Shalmaneser IV. (890) commenced a new series of wars the king crossed the Zab, or Zabat, to make wai on the mountain people of Upper Media, and afterwards on the Scythian tribes

The

sixteenth
;

SHALMANESER AND JEHU.

countries,

381

around the Caspian Sea. He did not, however, abandon the western where he soon found himself opposed by the new king whom the revohition, arising from the influence of Elisha the prophet, had
placed on the throne of Damascus in the

" In my eighteenth campaign

"
I

" (886),

room of Benhidri. we read on the Nimrud

time.

obelisk,

crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth

Hazael, king of

I took from him 1121 Damascus, came towards me to give battle. chariots and 470 horsemen, with his camp." " In my nineteenth campaign (885), I crossed the Euphrates for the

eighteenth time.

I marched towards Mount Amanus, and there cut beams of cedar." " In my twenty-first campaign (883), I crossed the Euphrates for the twenty-second time. I marched to the cities of Hazael of Damascus. I received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus." It evidently was at the end of this campaign that Jehu, king of Israel, whose territory Hazael had ravaged, appealed to Shalmaneser for help

against his powerful enemy.

The

inscription

the Assyrian king received tribute from Jehu,

on the obelisk says that whom it names " son of

Omri,"

for the great

renown of the founder of Samaria had made the

the kings of Israel as his descendants.

Assyrians consider

all

One

of

the bas-reliefs of the same

before Shalmaneser, as
if

monument

represents

Jehu prostrating himself

acknowledging himself a vassal. no more after this, either of the king They record, as his twenty-seventh camor of Israel. paign, a great war in Armenia that brought about the submission of all the districts of that country that still resisted the Assyrian monarch. In the thirty-first campaign (873), the last mentioned on the obelisk, the

The annals of Damascus

of Shalmaneser say

king sent the general-in-chief of his armies, Tartan, again into Armenia where he gave up to pillage fifty cities, among them Van and during this time he himself went into Media, subjected part of the northern
;

districts of that

country which were in a state of rebellion, chastised the

built,

people in the neighbourhood of Mount Elwand, where in after times

Ecbatana was Caspian Sea.

2.

and

finally

made war on

the Scythians of the

The

official

chronology of the Assyrians dates the termination of

But and he was reduced during the last two years his power was entirely lost, His second son, to the possession of two cities, Nineveh and Calah. Asshurdaninpal, in consequence of circumstances unknown to us, raised the standard of revolt against his father, assumed the royal title, and was supported by twenty-seven of the most important cities in the
the reign of Shalmaneser IV. in 870, the period of his death.

empire.

One

of the

monuments has preserved a

list

of these

cities,

and amongst them we find-Arrapkha, capital of the province of Arrapachitis, Amida (now Diarbekr), Arbela, Ellasar, and all the towns of

382
the hanks of

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

tlie

Tigris.

War

l)roke out

hetween the father and

his

rehelHous son, the army embraced the cause of the latter;

recognised by
shut
3.
all

he was

the provinces, and kept Shalmancser until his death

up and closely blockaded in his capital. Shalmaneserdied in 870 B.C.; his son, Shamash-Bin, continued the

legitimate line.

He

succeeded

in repressing the revolt of his brother,

Asshurdaninpal, and in depriving him of the authority he had usurped.

The monument recording

however, of the
that
civil

the exploits of his

it

first

years gives no details,

cities

war;

merely records, after enumerating the

had joined the

revolt of Asshurdaninpal,

"With

the aid of the great

gods,

my

masters, I subjected

them

to

my

sceptre."
civil

The

usurpation of the second son of Shalmaneser, and a

war of

and shaken The early years of Shamash-Bin were the fidelity of many provinces. In the narrative which has occupied in reducing the whole to order. been preserved, extending only to his fourth year, we find that the king overran and chastised with terrible severity Osrhoene or Aramaean Mesopotamia, where the people had been in rebellion, and reduced to obedience the mountainous districts, where are the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, and finally Armenia proper. In his fourth year he marched against Mardukbalatirib, king of Babylon, who had taken advantage of the disorders in Assyria to assert his independence, and who was supported by the Susianians or Elamites. He completely defeated him, and compelled him to fly to the desert, killed very many of his army in the battle, took 200 war-chariots, and made 7)000 prisoners, of whom 5,000 were put to death on the field of battle as an example. Unfortunately our information ceases at that period, and we know absolutely nothing of the greater part of the reign of ShamashBin, or of the expeditions to the west of Asia, Syria, and Palestine, that must have been made after the termination of the campaigns by which the royal authority was re-established in all the ancient provinces of the This king remained on the throne until 857. In 859 and 858 empire. had to repress a great revolt in Babylon and Chaldsea. he
five years,

had introduced many disorders

into the empire

4.

Binlikhish [or Binnirari] HI., the next king, reigned twenty-nine

years,

from 857 to 828.

'
'

An

inscription of his, engi-aved in the

first

years of his reign, describing the extent of the empire, says that he

From the land of Siluna, toward the rising sun, governed on one side the countries of Elam, Albania (at the foot of Caucasus), Kharkhar, Araziash, Misu, Media, Giratbunda (a portion of Atropatene, frequently mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions), the lands of Munna, Parsua (Parthia), Allabria (Hyrcania), Abdadana (Hecatompyla), Namri (the Caspian Scythians), even to all the tribes of the .\ndiu (a Turanian or Scythian people), whose country is far off, the whole of
the mountainous country as far as the sea of the rising sun (the Caspian

"

BINLIKIIISH

AND SAMMURAMAT.

383

Sea) ; on the other side from the Euphrates, Syria, all Phoenicia, the land of Tyre, of Sidon, the land of Omri (Samaria), Edom, the Philistines, as far as the sea of the setting sun (the Mediterranean) ;" on all these countries he says that "he imposed tribute."

"I marched," he says again, "against the land of Syria, and I took Marih, king of Syria, in Damascus, the city of his kingdom. The great dread of Asshur, my master, persuaded him; he embraced my
knees and made submission.
Binlikhish III. was a warlike prince; every year of his reign was expedition. have a summary of these in a chrono-

marked by an

We

logical tablet, in the British

Museum, containing a fragment (from the

end of the reign of Shamash-Bin to that of Tiglath-pileser II.) of a canon of eponyms mentioning the principal events year by year. They
neariy
all occurred in Southern Armenia, and in the land of Van, where obedience was only maintained by incessant military demonstrations, and subsequently in the countries to the north of Media, as far as the

Caspian Sea. Other expeditions were also made as far as Parthia, towards Ariana, and the various countries that, to the Assyrians, were the extreme east. We do not, however, know what that region was
called

by them, as

it

is

always designated by a group of ideogi-aphic

pronunciation.

By the defeat of Marih, king of Damascus, the submission of the western provinces was secured for the remainder of this reign, for there is no record of any other campaign there.
characters of

unknown

year 849 was marked by a great plague in Assyria ; 834 by a which unfortunately no particulars are known; and, lastly, 833 by the solemn inauguration of a new temple to the god Nebo, in the capital.
religious festival, of
5. But the most interesting monument of the reign of Binlikhish III, the statue of Nebo, one of the great gods of Babylon, discovered by Mr. Loftus, and now in the British Museum the inscription on the base of the statue mentions the wife of the king, and calls her, the
is
; ' '

The

queen Sammuramat ;" this mentioned by Herodotus.

is

the only historical Semiramis, the one

He

places her correctly about a century

and a half before Nitocris, the wife of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. " Semiramis," says the father of history, "raised magnificent embankments to restrain the river (Euphrates), which till then used to over* flow and flood the whole country round Babylon."* But why did Herodotus, and the Babylonian tradition he has so faithfully reported^ attribute these useful works to the queen, and not to her husband, Binlikhish ? It was once supposed, as a solution of this problem, that Sammuramat had governed alone for some time, as queen regnant,
*

Her.

i.

184.

384

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

But
this conjecture
is

after the deatli of licr husl)ainl.

absolutely con-

it can be seen that Sammuramat never reigned alone. In our opinion the only possible explanation will be found in regarding Binlikhish and Sammuramat as the Ferdinand and Isabella of Mesopotamia. The

tradicted by

tlie

table of eponynis in the British

Museum, where

restless desire of

Babylonia and Chaldosa to form a state sepai-ate from

;

Assyria grew more decided as time went on

it

in the time of Binlikhish

had already gained great strength, and the day was not far distant when the separation was definitely to take place, and to occasion the In this position of affairs it was natural for a utter ruin of Nineveh. king of Assyria to seek to strengthen his authority in Chalda;a by a marriage with a daughter of the royal line of that country, who were his vassals, and thus, in the opinion of the people of Babylon, acquire a legitimate right to the possession of the country by means of his wife, as well as the advantages to be derived from the attachment of the
people to their

own

legitimate sovereign.

We shall

therefore consider

Sammuramat
at Nineveh,

as a Babylonian princess married by Binlikhish,

and

as

reigning nominally at Babylon, wiiilst her husband occupied the throne

and as being the only sovereign registered by the BabyloIn fact, her position must have been a peculiar one, she must have been considered the rightful queen in one part of the empire, to have been named as queen, and in the same rank as the king, in such an official document as the inscription on^he statue She is the only princess mentioned in any of the of the god Nebo. Assyrian texts, as we might naturally suppose for unless under such very exceptional circumstances as we imagine in the case of Sammuramat, there can have been no queens, but only favourite concubines, under the organisation of harem life, such as it was under the Assyrian kings, and as it still is in our days.
nians in their national annals.
;

Section V.

Fall
I.

Asshurlikhish [Asshurnirari] or Sardanapalus, of the First Assyrian Empire, 828 789.

The
;

unnatural

exaggerated development of the Assyrian empire was quite the kings of Nineveh had never succeeded in welding into

one nation the numerous tribes whom they subdued by force of arms, or in checking in them the spirit of independence ; they had not even attempted to do so. The empire was absolutely without cohesion the
;

administrative system was so imperfect, the bond attaching the various

provinces to each other, and to the centre of the monarchy, so weak, that at the commencement of almost every reign a revolt broke out,

sometimes

at

one point, sometimes

at another.

to foresee that, so soon as the reins of

It was therefore easy government were no longer in a

REVOLUTION IN ASSYRIA.
really strong

385

hand

so soon as the king of Assyria should cease to be an

in the field,

active

and warlike king, always

always

at the

head of

his

troops

the great edifice laboriously built up by his predecessors of the

tenth and ninth centuries would collapse, and the iminense fabric of

empire would vanish like smoke with such rapidity as to astonish the world. And this is exactly what occurred after the death of BinJikhish III.
2.

The

tablet in the British

Museum we have

just

mentioned allows

us to follow year by year the events and the progress of the dissolution of the empire.

Under Shalmaneser
still

some
in

foreign expeditions were

;

819

but the forces

V., who reigned from 828 to 818, made, as for instance to Damascus of the empire were specially engaged during

many

following years, in attempting to hold countries already subdued,

;

such as Armenia, then in a chronic state of revolt

the wars in one and

the same province were constant, and occupied some six successive

campaigns

(the

Armenian war was from S27

to 822),

proving that no

decisive results were obtained.

Under
see any

Asshur-edil-ilani II.,

who

reigned from 818 to 800,

we do

not

new

conquests

insurrections constantly broke out,

no longer confined

to the extremities of the emj^ire,

and were they encroached on

the heart of the country, and gradually approached nearer to Nineveh.

The

revolutionary spirit increased in the provinces, a great insurrection

became imminent, and was ready to break out on the slightest excuse. At this period, 804, it is that the British Museum tablet registers, as a memorable fact in the column of events, "peace in the land." Two great plagues are also mentioned under this reign, in 811 and 805, and on the 13th of June, 809 (30 Sivan in the cponomy of Bur-el-salkhi), an
almost total eclipse of the sun visible at Nineveh.

The revolution was not long in coming. Asshurlikhish ascended the throne in 800, and fixed his residence at Nineveh, instead of Ellasar,
where
his predecessor

had lived

after quitting

Nineveh

he

is

the Sardan-

apalus of the Greeks, the ever-famous prototype of the voluptuous and

effeminate prince.

The

tablet in the British

Museum

only mentions two

expeditions in his reign, both of small importance, in 795 and 794; to all the other years the only notice is "in the country" proving that

nothing was done, and that

never
left his
life.

all

thought of war was abandoned.

all

Sardan-

apalus had entirely given himself up to the orgies of his harem, and palace walls, entirely renouncing

manly and warlike

habits of

He had
;

reigned thus for seven years, and discontent

continued to increase

the desire for independence was spreading in the

subject provinces; the

their obedience each year relaxed still more, and was nearer breaking, when Arbaces, who commanded the Median contingent of the army and was himself a Mcdc, chanced to

bond of

see in the palace at

Nineveh the king,

c c

in

a female dress, spindle in

386
hand,
hiilii\c;

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

in the

retirement of the

harem

his slothful cowardice

and

voluptuous
prince so

He considered that it would be easy to deal with a degraded, who would be unable to renew the valorous tradilife.

to have come when the might finally throw off tlie weighty Assyrian yoke. Arbaces communicated his ideas and projects to the ]irince then entrusted with the government of Bal)ylon, the Chalchran Phul [Palia?], surnamed Balazu (the terril)le), a name the Greeks have made into Belesis; he entered into the plot with the willingness to be expected from a Babylonian, one of a nation so frequently Arbaces and Balazu consulted with other chiefs, who rising in revolt. commanded contingents of foreign troops, and with the vassal kings of those countries that aspired to independence; and they all formed the resolution of overthrowing Sardanapalus. Arbaces engaged to i^aise the Medes and Persians, whilst Balazu set on foot the insurrection in Babylon and Chald?ca. At the end of a year the chiefs assembled their soldiers, to the number of 40,000, in Assyria, under the pretext of relieving, according to custom, the troops who had served the former year. When once there, the soldiers broke into open rebellion. The

tions of his ancestors.

The time seemed to him

force of

provinces, held only

by

arms,

tablet in the British

at

Museum

tells

us that the insurrection

Calah

in 792.

Immediately

after this the confusion

commenced became so great

that from this year there was no nomination of an eponym.

3. .Sardanapalus, rudely interrupted in his del:)aucheries by a danger he had not been able to foresee, showed himself suddenly inspired with he put himself at the head of the native Assyrian activity and courage troops who remained faithful to him, met the rebels and gained three The confederates already began to complete victories over them.
;

despair of success,
that
five

when

Phul, calling in the aid of superstition to a cause

if

seemed

lost,

declared to them that

they would hold together for

days more, the gods, whose will he had ascertained by consulting

fact,

the stars, would imdoubtedly give

In

some days afterwards a

large

them the victory. body of troops

whom

the king

had summoned Sea, went over, on their arrival, to the side of the insurgents, and gained them a victory. Sardanapalus then shut himself up in Nineveh, and determined to defend himself to the last. The siege continued two years, for the walls of the city were too strong for the battering machines of the enemy, who -were compelled to trust to reducing it by famine. Sardanapalus was under no apprehension, confiding in an oracle declaring that Nineveh should never be taken until the river became its enemy. But in the third year rain fell in such abundance that the waters of the
to his assistance from the provinces near the Caspian

Tigris inundated part of the city and overturned one of

its

walls for a

distance of twenty stades.

Then

the king, convinced that the oracle

to avoid falling

was accomplished and despairingof any means of escape,


FIRST DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH.
alive into his

387

enemy's hands, constructed in his palace an immense it his gold, and silver, and his royal roljes, and then, shutting himself up with his wives and eunuchs in a chamber formed in the midst of the pile, disappeared in the flames.
funeral pile, placed on

Nineveh opened
to the

its

gates to the besiegers, but this tardy submission

city. It was pillaged and burnt, and then rased ground so completely as to evidence the implacable hatred enkindled in the minds of subject nations, by the fierce and cruel Assyrian government. The Medes and Babylonians did not leave one stone upon

did not save the proud

another in the ramparts, palaces, temples, or houses of the city that for two centuries had been dominant over all Western Asia. So complete

was the destruction, that the excavations of modern explorers on the site of Nineveh have not yet found one single wall slab earlier than the
capture of the city by Arbaces and Balazu.
All

we

possess of the

first

Nineveh

is

one broken

statue.

History has no other example of so

complete a destruction.
independent states

overthrown, and the people

the

The Assyrian empire was, like the capital, who had taken part in the revolt formed Medes under Arbaces, the Babylonians under
Assyria,
in

Phul, or Balazu, and the Susianians under Shutruk-Nakhunta.

reduced to the enslaved state

countries, remained for

which she had so long held other time a dependency of Babylon. some

This great event occurred in the year 789 B.C.*

CHAPTER

HI.

THE SECOND ASSYRIAN EMPIRE.

Section
I.

Reign of Phul [Palia?] Re-establishment OF THE Assyrian Empire. 789721.

destruction
of Nineveh, the

Medes, content with having regained their independence, retired into their mountains without concerning themselves further with the fate of Mesopotamia; and the Chaldsean Phul Balazu, otherwise called Belesis, possessed
I.

After

the

* It must be mentioned that the opinions of many high authorities are opposed to the views expressed in the Text, and that the first destruction of Nineveh is believed not to be historical by Sir H. RawSee Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. i. linson and Professor Rawlinson. Essay 7, and Five Great Monarchies, vol. ii.pp. 385 395. The author is, however, in agreement with M. Oppert and the late Dr. Hincks.

3SS

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

himself of Assyria, and made it for a lime a dependency of Babylon; he also seized on the western jjrovinces of the Assyrian monarchy, that is of the Arama-an ct)untries on both sides of the Euphrates.

No

inscription of this king has as yet licen found,

and the

classical

historians
fore that

do not mention him

of his reign

after the capture of

is

Nineveh.

All there-

we know

the record in the Bible of his invasion

of the kingdom of Israel in 770.

after

murdering
still

his predecessor, but

existing.

Alenahem had ascended the throne tliere was a factious and strong

opposition

Incapable, in the midst of these domestic

discords, of repulsing a foreign invasion,

that threatened

him by submitting

paid 1,000 talents of silver (2 obtained the support of the Assyrian monarch in retaining his usurped
throne.

he could only avert the dangers be tributary to Phul, to whom he Kings xv. 19), and by this humiliation
to

But the supremacy of the Chaldajans over Assyria did not last who died in 747. The Assyrians were by far the most warlike of the nations of Mesopotamia; they were an essentially manly and military people, and in the eighth century B.C. the spirit of the great wars of the two preceding centuries was not yet extinct, in spite of the disaster of Sardanapalus. Assyria had been crushed only by a coalition of Medes, Susianians, and Babylonians, attacking the capital with the ardour inspired by deep-seated and unbounded hatred. But when the Medes and Susianians had retired to their own countries, where they remained quiet, satisfied with having destroyed the proud city that had so long oppressed them, when the Assyrians were only opposed by the Babylonians, who, though they had momentarily gained the upper hand, were too enervated, too little endowed with strength of character and warlike energy, as compared with their northern neighbours, to be able to presei-ve their supremacy long, the spirit of independence quickly awakened in the populous Assyrian cities, even if it had ever been lost, and forty-five years after the destruction of Nineveh a general insurrection drove the Babylonians out of Assyria. The royal race of the descendants of Belkatirassu had not become extinct with Asshurlikhish, when he ascended his funeral pile. There still remained some princes of this race concealed in
2.

longer than the reign of Phul,

different

parts

of the countiy.

One

of

these,

Tiglath-pileser

II.

was placed by the Assyrian insurgents at their head. The revolt evidently must have commenced immediately after the death of Phul, in 747. But it was not at once successful, the Babylonians would not abandon their conquests ithout i^esistance. There was a
[Tuklat-pal-ashar],
struggle prolonged for several years, and
it

was not

till

the 13th of the

month of Air (May),

surmounted
all

the year 744, that Tiglath-pileser, having opposition, could date his accession to the throne. In
in

this year the exclusively Assyrian

custom of eponyms was re-established;

TIGLATH-PILESER IN SYRIA.
for

389

during the time of Phul dates were reckoned in the Babylonian

fashion,
3.

by the years of his reign. Osrhoene and the north of Syria had been so completely crashed by the Assyrian conquerors of the tenth and ninth centuries, that they no longer had any distinct nationality or desire for independence. Mere dependencies of Nineveh, they changed masters with each revolution in After the fall of AsshurAssyria, and obeyed whoever reigned there.
likhish, or Sardanapalus, they

were transferred

to the rule of Phul;

when

the kingdom of Assyria was re-established, they quietly transferred their The London chronological table informs allegiance to Tiglath-pileser.
us, that in the

very year of his accession this king travelled as far as the Euphrates to re-establish his authority in the western provinces.

Two

to obedience both Babylonia

years after his accession in 742, Tiglath-pileser, having reduced and the country of the Scythian Caspians,

made an
hidri,

expedition into Syria, as his authority had not been recognised

Eniel, king of

in the south of that country.

Hamath, Rezin, son of Ben-

king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Israel, formed a confederation against him with Ashariah, son of Tabeal,*whom these princes had put forward as a pretender to the throne of Judah, in opposition
first

to

Jotham, and subsequently to Ahaz.

The

confederates were

defeated, the kingdoms of Hamath and Damascus ravaged, Pekah was dethroned, and his place filled by Menahem II. Tiglath-pileser The city of Arpad alone resisted, and carried everything before him.

sustained a siege of three years

direction of his generals.
tribute

this the

king of Assyria

left to

the

Before leaving Syria, in 742, he received from Hystaspes [Gustaspi], king of Commagene, Rezin, king of Damascus, Menahem, king of Israel, Hiram, king of Tyre, Sibitbaal, king
of Gebal, Urikki, king of

Kui

(a city in

some

part of Syria, but not yet

identified), Pisiris,

king of Carchemish, and Eniel, king of Hamath.

After his return to Assyria, Tiglath-pileser, to assist in the re-organisation of the administration of the empire, took a census of the population.

In the same year he conquered the Armenians who had, at the same time as the Medes, thrown off the burden of Ninevite supremacy, and his victory is termed a massacre in the tablet in the British Museum. In 734 Pekah, taking advantage of the war in Armenia, then occupying the king of Assyria, again possessed himself of the throne, declared himself independent, and allied himself with Rezin, king of Damascus, in order to resist the power of Assyria.

Ahaz, king of Judah, threatened by Pekah and Rezin, begged for help from Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings xvi. 7, 9), who gladly availed himself of this pretext to chastise the two kings whom he regarded as rebels.

* In the Bible this personage is called merely the son of Tabeal, See p. 172. learn his name only from the Assyrian inscriptions.

we

390

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

advanced
at the

He

head of a numerous army into Syria, determined to

tiicsc

take advantage of

occurrences in order to bring the nations of

He commenced by destroying tlie Damascus and putting Rezin to dcalli. Marcliing next against the Philistines, he took Gaza ; its king at first took refuge in
Palestine dcfniitely into subjection.
of

kingdom
Egypt,

but afterwards returned and

made

his submission.

Mitenti,

king of Ashdod, also at first took to flight, and v/as provisionally he, moreover, at last returned and replaced by his son, Rukiptu made his submission to Tiglatli-pilescr. The Assyrian king made also
;

a great expedition against the Arabs of Dumah, took their city, and imposed on them a considerable tribute. Towards the end of the year 731 Tiglath-pileser, before returning to Nineveli, held a grand court at Damascus. Twenty-three vassal kings came there to do him homage, and pay their tribute. These were, in the order in which the conqueror himself enumerates them, Hystaspes of Commagene, Urikki of Kui, Sibitbaal of Gcbal, Pisiris of Carchemish, Eniel of Hamath, Pennamu of Samala in Armenia, Tarhula of Gamgum in the same country, Sulumal of Melitene, Dadil of Colchis, Wassami of the Tibareni, Uskhilti of Tuna, Tuham of Istunda, Urim of Hubisna (the four last are names of cities in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus and their precise situation is not yet determined), Mathanbaal of Aradus, Sanib of Ammon, Solomon of Moab, Pekah of Israel, Shamsie, queen of the Arabs, Mitenti, king of Ascalon, Ahaz of Judah,

Kadu-malka of Edom, Hanun of Gaza. The king of Tyre does not appear in this list. We do not know whether Hiram was still on the throne, or whether his son, Muthon, was king. But in the following year we have distinct mention of Muthon as sovereign. Tiglath-pileser took from Pekah half of his territory, and also reduced him to the most abject vassalage, imposing on him a very considerable
tribute.

with the

In this war, lasting three years (from 733 to 731), we meet first instance of the barbarous system of transplanting the whole people of a conquered country to places far distant from their
native land

a system seemingly unknown to the kings of

the

first,

but

constantly practised by those of the second, Assyrian empire, and after

them by the Babylonians, no doubt as being likely to prevent revolts. The principal inhabitants of the kingdom of Damascus were transported to Armenia, to the banks of the river Cyrus the Israelitish tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh were carried captive to Assyria. Military colonies of Assyrians and Chaldaeans replaced them in their own
;

countries (2 Chron. xxviii. 20).

Ahaz, king of Judah, paid dearly for

the services the king of Assyria had rendered

him

in delivering

him

he was obliged to acknowledge himself a vassal of the king, to go to Damascus to pay him homage, and to engage to pay a tribute, continued till his death, and the accession of Hezekiah.

from

his enemies,

SHALMANESER

VI.

391

In the interval between the two campaigns in Syria, in 736, Tiglathpileser, not venturing to attack Media proper, took Atropatene, of which

he had become master in his preceding wars, for his base of operations, and made a great expedition into those countries considered by the Assyrians as the extreme east, that is what classical geographers call Ariana. He advanced farther than any of his predecessors, and reached the frontiers of India. In an inscription towards the end of his reign he names

among
states

the countries that paid tribute to him, after the small Scythian

on the borders of the Caspian Sea, Parsuash (Parthia), Zikruti (Cai-umanian Sagartia), Nissha (the Nisai of the Zend Avesta, the Nisa^a of the classical geographers), Ariarva (Aria), and Arakuttu (Arachosia).
mistake the identification of these countries. end of 730, Muthon, king of Tyre, made an alliance with Towards the Pekah, king of Israel, and they both refused their tribute to the AssyIt is impossible to rians.

Tiglath-pileser did not consider this revolt of sufficient import-

ance to require his

own

presence.

He

contented himself with sending

an army into Palestine. On the approach of this force a conspiracy was formed in Samaria, headed by Hoshea, who, after killing Pekah, The Assyrian king confirmed him in possessed himself of the crown. this position, and Muthon, finding himself without an ally, attempted

no

and quietly submitted to pay his tribute.* Shalmaneser [Shalmanuashir] VI. succeeded Tiglath-pileser in 727. 4. We have no monuments of his reign except some bronze weights now in and we know its precise length only from the the British Museum
resistance,
;

table

of eponyms

in the

same

collection.

The

only events that

in the

we

know

of this period are those related in the Bible.

Hoshea, who had

seized the throne after murdering

Pekah

in 730,

had

commenceBut
at the

ment of his end of some

reign paid the

years, having

same

tribute as his predecessor.

the Ethiopian king, Shabaka,

made an who

offensive
in 725

and became master of Egypt, he

defensive alliance with

Shalmaneser, desirous of thought himself strong enough to revolt. putting an end to this rebellion before the Ethiopian conqueror could have time to fulfil his promises to Hoshea, hastily assembled an army, and marched on the kingdom of Israel. He captured and imprisoned

Hoshea, and without difficulty, made himself master of the small territory left by his predecessors to the Israelites, and in December 724 laid siege to Samaria, the capital. This city, the last bulwark of Israelitish

was defended with desperate energy. Shalmaneser, unable to take it by storm, resolved to reduce it by blockade, but he did not In little more than a year after live to witness the fall of Samaria.
nationality,

The details of these campaigns of Tiglath-pileser have been elucidated by Mr. George Smith and M. Oppert. The former is well known to Assyrian scholars as the discoverer of many importajit facts, and for his accomplishments as a decipherer of Assyrian inscriptions.


ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.
commencement
lie

392
the

of the siege, in

722,

lie

died

we do

not

know

whether

luul

first

returned to Assyria, leaving his generals before

tlie

the place, or wlielhcr his death look place in

land of Israel.

Section
1.

II.

Sauc.on [Sharyukin].
left

SiiAL.MANESER [Shalmanuashir]

only one son,

age.

The

Tartan, or general-in-chief of his troops,

who was under named Sargon

[Sharyukin], and

who was descended

also

another branch, then seized on the throne.

from the royal family by But his accession was not

unattended with difficulties; there were other competitors, and six months passed after the death of Shalmaneser before his reign com-

menced. A celestial prodigy, the famous eclipse of the moon on the 19th March, 721 (the same that plays so important a part in the construction of the astronomical tables of the Greek Ptolemy), exercised on the election of Sargon an influence the exact nature of which we cannot understand. In his inscriptions there is frequent mention of the princes

who

before

Haran

interpreted the eclipse in his favour, and gave in

Oannes, and Dagon. For the first three years he ruled only as the guardian and co-regent of the Assyrian Hercules the young Samdan-malik (Samdan is king), son of Shalmaneser. The table of eponyms in the British Museum informs us, that it was only from 718 that Sargon reigned alone, but the years of his reign were reckoned from 721. This usurper was a great king, a redoubtable conqueror, who restored to Assyria all its ancient glory, all the extent of territory it had possessed before the disaster of Asshurlikhish, and even added new domains, never The long inscriptions found by M. previously subject to Nineveh.

their adhesion in the midst of sacrifices offered to

Botta in the palace of Khorsabad,

emperors.
2.

make

us even better acquainted with

the details of his reign, than with those of more than one of the

Roman

"This

is

inscriptions, in

what I have done," says Sargon, in the longest of the which he relates his annals, "from the commencement

of

my
"

reign to

my

fifteenth

campaign.
Kalu, Humbanigash, king of Elam.
I

I defeated in the plains of

"I

besieged, took, and occupied the city of Samaria, and carried

its

into captivity 27,280 of

inhabitants.
it

ment of

the country, and placed over

lieutenants of

changed the former governmy own."

The

fall

of Samaria and the destruction of the

kingdom of

Israel

took place, as

we have
as

already said, in July 721.

the
after the ruin of

The

inhabitants of

the capital, as well

chief families of the Ephraimites,

were

Nineveh, had become the usual residence of the kings), to the banks of the Chaboras, and to some of the recently reconquered Median cities. In their place Sargon

removed

to

Calah (which,


CAMPAIGNS OF SARGON.
the lower Tigris, the king of Elam.

393

established in the land of Israel colonies of captives from provinces of

who had fallen into his power durmg the war against The Bible, in complete agreement with the inscripland of Israel was not reconstituted as a tributary

tion, tells us that the

kingdom, but as a simple province, occupied by a military force, and governed by an Assyrian officer. " Hanun, king of Gaza, and Sebeh (Shabak), " Sultan "* of Egypt

came to Raphia to fight against me, they met me, and I routed them. Sebeh fled .... I took prisoner Hanun, king of Gaza. " I imposed tribute on Pharaoh of Egypt, on Shamsie, queen of Arabia,
and on Yathaamir the Sabcean, of gold,
spices, horses

and camels."

omit the account given in the inscription of the conquest of countries that seem to belong to the interior of Asia Minor, but as yet

We

have not been identified with the names known in classical geogi-aphy, Sargon had given Cilicia to the king of this latter country, but as he subsequently revolted, he was kept prisoner in Assyria with all the grandees of his court. "Yaubid [or Ilubid] of Hamath was not the legitimate king .... He persuaded the cities of Arpad, Simyra, Damascus, and Samaria to
such as Sinukhta and Khulli.

me, and prepared for battle. I led out all the forces of the god Asshur. I besieged him and his warriors in the city of Karkar, I took I took Karkar and burnt it to ashes. that had taken his part. him prisoner, and caused him to be flayed alive. I killed the chiefs of the rebels in each city, and destroyed the cities. " Whilst Iranzu of Van lived, he was submissive and devoted to my His subjects placed his son, Aza, on the throne. empire, but he died. Urzaha the Armenian set on foot intrigues with the people of Mount Mildish (the Niphates of the Greeks), of Zikarta (Median Sagartia), of Misiandi (the Matieni of classical geography), and with the great men of Van, and persuaded them to revolt. They abandoned the body of Ullushun of Van, his their master, Aza, on the tops of the mountains. brother, whom they put on the throne, made an alliance with Urzaha, and gave him twenty-two strong places with their garrisons. In the wrath of my heart I counted all the armies of the god Asshur, and advanced to attack that country. Ullushun of Van, finding that I was approaching, came with his troops and occupied a strong position in the
revolt against
* This unusual title "Silthan," or Sultan, of Egypt, is evidently contrasted in the inscription with the usual title of the Egyptian monarch Pharoah, or Pir'u, in the succeeding paragraph. Sir PI. Rawlinson reads the word as Tardanu, " the high in rank," and considers the title as implying a position subordinate to the reigning monarch. The author, in accordance with M. Oppert, regards it as the title indicating the suzerainty of the Ethiopian, to whom the legiti-

mate Pharaoh was a

vassal.

Tk.

394

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

I

ravines of the high mountains.

cities

occupied

Izirti,

iiis

royal city,

tlie

of Isibia and Armit, his strong fortresses.

I

reduced them to

ashes.

icilled all

that

members of his .... and reduced them to

captive 250

belonged to Urzaha the Armenian. I took family; I occupied fifty-five walled cities
ashes.

The twenty-two
I

strong cities of
to Assyria."

Ullushun, of which Urzaha had become master,

annexed

Sargon next relates how he ravaged in Armenia the states of Mitatti, king of Zikarta, or Sagartia, and sacked twenty-three of his cities; how

he took prisoner Sagadatti, king of Mount Mildish, and had him flayed alive there is a representation of this on the l^as-reliefs of the palace at Khorsabad. These are followed by a narration of other campaigns in Armenia, where king Urzaha for many years remained his irreconcilable enemy, constantly exciting fresh insurrections among the vassal kings, until at last he was compelled to commit suicide to avoid falling into the hands of Sargon ; in Media also, where many districts were again brought under the Assyrian yoke then in Parthia, where the great city of Surgadia was taken by assault in Albania ; in the Caucasus ; in the mountains of Cilicia and Pisidia, where the inhabitants of one city, Papha, were transported to Damascus. This system of transportation of the inhabitants of conquered countries was continued throughout all the wars of Sargon. " Azuri, king of Ashdod, obstinately refused to pay his tribute; he sent to the neighbouring kings messages hostile to the king of Assyria. As a punishment I replaced him by another. I placed on the throne his brother, Akhimit. But the people, bent on revolt, rejected the authority of Akhimit, and placed Yaman, who was not legitimate, master on the throne. In my wrath ... I marched against Ashdod with my warriors, who followed close on my footsteps. "Yaman learned from far the news of my approach, and fled into Egypt to Milukhi,*and no trace of him was ever found. I besieged and took Ashdod ... I carried off captive his gods, his wife, his sons, his daughters, and his treasures, all the contents of his palace, and the inhabitants of his land. I rebuilt again his cities, and placed there the people whom I had conquered in the lands of the rising sun. I gave them an officer of mine as governor, and treated them like Assyrians. " The date of this war against Ashdod is fixed by another inscription as the year 710. It is also mentioned in the Bible (Isaiah xx. i). " The king of Milukhi dwells in a desert land." He must not be
:

* The author had originally identified, as had M. Oppert, Milukhi with Meroe. He has, however, found proof in the Cylinder of Asshurbanipal that Milukhi was north of Memphis, and that it was the name given to the western portion of the Delta (Merekh in the Hieroglyphic texts), where at this time a small independent kingdom existed. The discovery was unfortunately made too late to appear in the French edition of this work.

"

CAMPAIGNS OF SARGON,

395

confounded with the Ethiopian Shabak, whose capital was at Napata. This prince, as we learn from other documents of Sargon, had given an asylum to Yaman, thus explaining the sudden appearance of his name in the inscription. It seems that the king of Assyria made preparations for war against the king of Milukhi, who wished to avert the
danger.

" From the most

to the kings,

distant

ages his fathers had never sent

to ask for peace and friendship, Merodach. But the great terror and to acknowledge the power of inspired by my majesty decided him, and fear caused him to act differently. He recognised the greatness of the god Adar, directed his steps to Assyria, and prostrated himself before me. We next find the story of a revolt in Commagene, repressed with

ambassadors

my ancestors,

great severity, and of a civil

crown

in this

war in Albania, about the succession to the Sargon intervened, and placed one of the competitors on
of Yakin (undoubtedly

the throne.

"Merodach Baladan (Mardukbaliddin), son

the Kinzirus of the canon of the kings of Babylon, preserved by the Greek astronomer, Ptolemy), king of ChaklKa, no longer respected the memory

of the gods

... he evaded

their precepts

and neglected

their worship.

He He

had allied himself for assistance with Humbanigash, king of Elam. had excited to revolt the nomad tribes (of Irak Arabi). He prepared

and was advancing." Sargon continues the narrative by telling how he assembled all his forces to fight with Merodach Baladan. He, becoming alarmed, evacuated Babylon, and retreated into Lower Chaldsea to the neighbourhood of a fortress built by his father, and There a sanguinary battle took place, and the incalled Dur- Yakin.
for a battle

scription gives all

its

details;

king and his

allies,

who

hastened to

ending in the defeat of the Chaldean make their submission the very
in his caiiip

same evening. " Merodach Baladan," continues Sargon, "abandoned

his royal insignia, his golden
tiara, his

golden throne, his golden parasol,

his golden sceptre,

his silver chair

... he escaped

in disguise.

besieged and took his city of Dur-Yakin. I took gold, his wife, his sons, his daughters.
I punished for their faults all the families,

I took as prisoners himself,

silver, all his possessions.
all

and

the

men who had

I undei'-

revolted from

my government.

reduced the

cities to ashes.

mined and destroyed the walls." This war took place in winter, and Sargon re-entered Babylon in triumph in February. This battle at Dur-Yakin avenged the destruction of Nineveh, and again brought Babylon under the Assyrian yoke, from which Phul had freed her. It occurred in 709, according to the Sargon after having dethroned chronological canon of Ptolemy. Merodach Baladan did not again place a vassal king on the throne of Babylon, as other monarchs of Assyria had done, but merely a satrap


39<5

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

own appoinlniLMit, named Nabupakidilani. Tlie prisoners premade in Commagene were settled in Lower Chald;ea and
some years
earlier in the

of

liis

viously

Susiana or Elam; and, on the other hand, those taken in Chaldaja were
sent to join the colonies established

kingdom

of Israel.

" The seven kings of the land of latnan (Island of Cypnis), who had
established themselves at a distance of seven days'
setting sun,
sail in

the sea of the

and whose name none among the kings my fathers in Assyria and Chaldnea had ever heard, having learned the great deeds I had done in Syria and in Chaldn?a, and my gloiy that had spread far off even into
the midst of the sea,

humbled

their pride

and bowed themselves before

at Balaylon,

me

they presented themselves before

before
is

me

bearing metals,
;

gold, silver, vases, ebony,

and the manufactures of

referred

their country

they

bowed themselves
to

me."

This submission of the Isle of Cyprus

the Assyrian king

708.

Some

years ago there

by anotlier inscription to the year was discovered in this island, at Lamica,

the ancient Citium, a large stele of granite with a cuneiform inscription

and a representation of king Sargon. 3. The long inscription whence we have borrowed these quotations, known by the name of "The Acts of Sargon," mentions only the victories of the king, and is entirely silent on the serious check he received in the midst of his prosperity before Tyre. Another inscription converts this repulse into a victory, l^ut only devotes one line to it,
as not wishing to bring

up a

recollection so painful to the king's pride.

it

After the story of the battle of Raphia,

I crossed the

proceeds, " Master of battles,

I

Sea of Jamnia
tlie

in ships, like a fish.

annexed Kui and

Tyre."
Josephus

and here
:

Now

annals of Tyre, as quoted by the Jewish historia.n

we must

in preference believe

them

contain the
revolt of the

following account

"

Elulaeus reigned thirty-six years; this king,

upon the

people of Citium, sailed to them, and reduced them to obedience.

Soon

after the

king of Assyria, at the head of his army, overran

all

Phoenicia, but retired

Paljetyrus,

when they made

their submission.

Sidon, Acco,

and many other

cities revolted

selves

up

to the

king of Assyria.

When

the Tyrians

from Tyre, and gave themwould not submit

to him, the king returned

and made war upon them again, having received from the other Phoenicians sixty large ships with 800 rowers. The Tyrians, with only twelve ships, dispersed the enemy's fleet, and took from them 500 prisoners a very high honour for the Tyrians. Then the king returned and blockaded tlieir city by land, and intercepted the aqueducts that brought water into it, hoping thus to secure But the Tyrians, having dug wells inside their city, their sulimission. At the end of this long resisted five years " (Joseph. Ant., IX. xiv. 2). and fruitless siege, the Assyrians were compelled to retreat.

BUILDINGS OF SARGON.
4.

397

In 711, in the midst of his military successes, Sargon, "to replace

Nineveh," not yet risen from its ruins, undertook the building of a new and large city, at a distance of fifteen miles from the site of the ancient capital, called Dur Sharyukin (the castle of Sargon). This place is now called Khorsabad; and here the first discoveries of works of Assyrian art were made, and the magnificent palace, entirely the work of Sargon, uncovered by the labours successively of M. Botta and M. Victor Place. The best of the sculptures from this place now ornament the Museum of the Louvre. We shall have occasion to mention, in another part of this work, the ruins of this city and ])alace, completed
in 706.

At present we

sliall

simply quote what Sargon says in his

details of the

"Acts."
" At the

He

there gives

some

construction of

some

parts of an Assyrian palace that are of great value.

foot of the

Musri, to replace Nineveh,

have

built, ac-

cording to the will of the gods and the desire of

divine wives,

my

heart, a city, called

Dur Sharyukin. Nisroch, Sin, Shamash, Nebo, Ao, Adar, and their who reign eternally in Mesopotamia, have blessed the mai-vellous splendours, the superb streets, of the city of Dur Sharyukin.

....

I built in the city a palace

covered with seal skin, with wood-

work of

sandal, ebony,

fir,

cedar, Cyprus,

and pistachio

a
.
. .

palace of

incomparable magnificence for the seat of my royalty. There I wrote up the glory of the gods. The upper part I built of cedar wood,
I cased the

beams with bronze. ...

made

a spiral staircase,
I

lil<e

that

of the great temple in Syria, called

Bethilanni.

sculptui^ed with

from the mountain. To decorate the gates, I made and jambs, and placed above them cross pieces My palace contains gold, silver; vases of these two metals, colours, iron, the produce of various mines, stuffs dyed with saffron, blue and purple, ambergris, seal skins, pearls, sandal and ebony wood, horses from Egypt, apes, mules, camels, booty of all

works of

art stones

ornaments on the of gypsum.

. . .

lintels

kinds."
5. In 706 the works at Dur Sharj'ukin were finished, and on the 22nd of the month Tasrit {in October), the solenm ceremony was held Two of the consecration of the new city, of its palace and temples. years afterwards, in 704, on the 1 2th of the month Ab (in August), Sargon was assassinated it is not known by whom, but possibly by Chaldrean conspirators ; for soon after his murder an insurrection took He was in turn put to death place in Babylon under a certain Agises. by a second Merodach-baladan, probably a son of the one who lost the During battle of Dur Yakin, who took command of the Babylonians.
;

this time,

in Assyria,

Sennacherib [Sinakherib], son of Sargon, suc-

ceeded

his father.

398

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Section
III.

Sennachkrih [Sinakiikkik].
704681.

more exactly Sinakherib (Sin the moon-god is the most cclel)ratcd of the Assyrian conquerors, owing to the concurrent mention of him in Herodotus and the Bible. We possess the official narrative of his wars up to 684 in an inscription of 480 lines of veiy close writing on the six faces of a cylinder of baked earth, now in the British Museum, without reckoning an immense number of other texts of great historical importance. We shall, as with the " Acts of Sargon," quote the most important passages they will show us what was the reign of this king who made the proud boast, I have brought under my power every one who carried his head high." "In my first campaign I conquered Merodach-baladan, king of Chaldcea, and the armies of Elam, in the neighbourhood of Kish. In the midst of the battle he stole away quietly. The chariots, the horses that were engaged, turned against him; he escaped alone, and fled to his palace at Babylon. But I opened his treasure-house, I seized gold, silver, his furniture, his robes, his wife, his men, his courtiers, his male and female slaves, his domestics of the palace, his soldiers I brought them out and sold them for slaves. With the aid of Asshur, my lord, I besieged seventy-nine large strongholds in Chaldgea, and 820 small towns in the neighbourhood. The tribes of Urbi, Aram, and Khaldu, who were in the cities of Erech, Nipur, Kish, of Calneh and Cutha, I brought out and sold for slaves." The chronological canon of Ptolemy informs us that after this victory Sennacherib no longer allowed Babylon to be ruled, as his father had done, by a simple satrap, but placed there a vassal king, named Belibus, a young Ninevite, who had been brought up in the royal palace. In his second campaign Sennacherib turned his arms against the warlike tribes of the north and east, in Armenia, Media, and Albania, among the Parthians, and in Commagene, and gained signal victories
I.

Sennacherib,

or

has muhi]ilied brothers),

'

'

over them.
2.

" In

my third

campaign

marched towards Syria;

Eluli

was king
his

of the .Sidonians.

The
isles

great renown of

my

majesty affrighted him,

and he
country.

fled to the

in the midst of the sea

and abandoned

The

cities

of Great Sidon and Lesser Sidon, Betzitti, Sarepta,

cities,

Ecdippa, AccQ, the great

the citadels, the places of pilgrimage

and devotion, the temples, all had been affrighted by the glory of I established EthAsshur, my master, and gave themselves up to me. I imposed on him tribute and the tenth part of his baal on the throne.
royal rents.

"Ethbaal of Sidon, Abdilit of Aradus, Mitenti of Ashdod, Peduil

SENNACHERIB AND HEZEKIAH.

399

of Amnion, Kamoshnadab of Moab, Molochram of Edom, and the kings of the whole of Phoenicia, brought with them into my presence numerous tributes, and bowed themselves before me.

"But Sidka of Ascalon did not submit to me. I carried off his gods from the house of his fathers ; I led captive himself, his wife, his sons, his daughters, his brothers, the scions of his race, and carried
The nders, dignitaries, and inhabitants of them into Assyria. * had betrayed the king, Padi, who was inspired by friendship Migron and zeal for Assyria, and had given him up bound in chains of iron
. .

Hezekiah of Judah. they were afraid of the kings of Egypt; for the archers, chariots, and horses of the king of Ethiopia, innumerable in multitude, assembled and marched against me. Their chiefs formed them in order of battle, in view of the city of Eltheca [Eltekon, Jos. xv. 59], and inAdoring Asshur, my master, I fought against spected their men. them, and put them to flight. The drivers of the chariots of the king I of Meroe were taken alive by my hand in the midst of the battle. besieged and took the cities of Eltheca and Thamna, and carried off
to
.
.

"But

their inhabitants captive.

"Then
dignitaries

returned towards Migi-on

revolted,

deposed the nders and the

;

who had

and

killed

them

hung

their bodies

on

on the walls of the city. I sold for slaves all the men of the As for those who had city who had committed violence and crimes. not committed crimes or faults, and had not despised their masters, I pardoned them. I brought Padi, their king, out of Jerusalem, and I imposed on him the restored him to the throne of his royalty.
crosses
tribute paid as

acknowledgment of my
infinite

suzerainty.

"But Hezekiah, king

against,
fire,

of Judah, did not submit.

There were
I

forty-

four walled towns, and an

number of
I

villages that

fought
of

humbling

their pride,

and braving their anger.

took them

By means
;

massacre, battles, and siege operations,

I

occupied

them;
horses,
carried

brought out 200, 150 persons, great and small, men and women, apes, mules, camels, oxen and sheep without numl)er, and
off as

them

booty.

As

for himself, I shut

its

him up

in Jerusalem,

the city of his power, like a bird in

cage.

I invested

and blockaded
city

the fortresses round

it

those who

came out of the great gate of the

* The name given in the text as " Migron " is read by Sir H. Rawlinson as "Ekron." The word in the Assyrian text is read by the author as Aingamin, and he regards it impossible to admit the identification of the name with Ekron. On the one hand may lie urged the apparently very small importance of Migron, a town barely mentioned in Scripture, and the certainty that there was a king of Ekron ; on the other hand, Migron is specially mentioned in the magnificent description of the advance of the Assyrian army in the loth chapter of Isaiah.

400

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

were seized, and made prisoners. I separated the cities I liad ])lundcrcd from his country, and gave tliom to Mitenti, king of Ashdod, to I'adi, king of Migron, to Ishmabaal, king of Gaza.

"Then
sent

tlie

fear of

my

away the

\vatclimen and guards

majesty tenificd this Hezelciah of Jmlali; lie a\ horn lie had assemliled for the
sent messengers to

defence of Jerusalem.
seat of

He

me

at

Nineveh,

the

my

sovereignty, with thirty talents of gold and

400

talents of

silver, metals, rubies, pearls, great carbuncles, seats

covered with skins,

thrones ornamented with leather, amber, seal skins, sandal wood, and

ebony, the contents of his treasury, as well as his daughters, the

of his palace, his male and female slaves.
present this tribute, and to

women

He

sent an ambassador to

make

his submission."

himself agree, as we see, in a These most striking manner with the Bible narrative as to the ransom Hezekiali was compelled to pay in order to save Jerusalem, where the Assyrian conqueror had once appeared. But Sennacherib has not told his annals are silent as to the disaster that befell his army on us all He has so completely his second attempt on the capital of Judah. passed over this episode, that he does not even mention the siege of Lachish, where he was when he sent to .summon Hezekiah to surrender the submission of Lachish is nevertheless represented on a the city
inscriptions of Sennacherib
; ;

great bas-relief in the palace at Nineveh,

3.

now

in the British

Museum.

Desirous of retrieving the reputation of his arms, temporarily

compromised by the check received before Jerusalem, Sennacherib in the following year (699) marched against Babylon, where important Belibus had been driven events had occurred during his absence. insurrection under Merodach Baladan, who had escaped away by an from prison. This indomitable champion of Babylonian independence
at once put himself into a state of defence against the Assyrian king, from whom he anticipated war to tlie knife. The Bible informs us that he solicited the alliance of Hezekiah, after the disaster of Senna-

cherib before Jerusalem.

referring to the

Unfortunately the portion of the inscription

is

campaign against Merodacli Baladan

it

much

mutilated.

We only learn from

into the marshes of
battle
;

that Sennacherib pursued the Chaldsean prince

Lower Chaldtea, where he defeated him in a great Merodach Baladan then fled into Elymais, where he soon died.
return," says Sennacherib, " I placed on the throne of royalty

" On my
(at

Babylon) Asshur-nadin,
is

my

eldest son, the

child of

my

blessings."

This

confirmed by Berosus, and by the canon of Ptolemy.

this

At the end of
towards the

war Sennacherib entered ujjon another, rendered

very troublesome by the nature of the countiy, in the eastern mountains

frontiers of

number
possible

of cities,
as

Media and Susiana. "perched up on high like

He there

captured a great
it is

birds' nests "; but

im-

yet

to

identify these places with the

modern

localities.

"

PALACE OF SENNACHERIB.
Pressing his advantage
still

401

farther into countries that liad not yet felt

the weight of the Assyrian arms, Sennacherib^ attacked the land of Dayi, in which we recognise with Sir II. Rawlinson the territory of the

Their Dahi, mentioned by Herodotus * as one of the Persian tribes. " I carried king is called Maniya, a name clearly of Iranian character. off," says the king, "the men, the beasts of burden, the cattle, the

sheep
ashes.
4.

I destroyed the cities, I

demolished them,

reduced them to

Some

years of peace succeeded these devastating wars, and Sen-

nacherib profited

by them

to put into execution the project

he had con-

ceived of rebuilding Nineveh, and re-establishing it as the capital, after This the example of the great kings of the tenth and ninth centuries. famous city had already begun to rise from its ruins, the inhabitants had returned to settle on its site, but it had not yet recovered its former prosperity, the ancient capital had become a simple country town.

Sennacherib made

it

again the Queen of Asiatic

cities

magnificent
says, in

enough

to rival the splendors of Babylon.

"

I rebuilt,"

he

an

inscription, "all the edifices of

Nineveh,
streets
;

my

royal city; I rebuilt the the entire city splendid

its

ancient, I

widened the narrower

made

as the sun."

Dur Sharyukin,
its

and a large part of

theless
it
it

by population came
built

his

father, lost

importance,

to settle at

Nineveh.

Never-

continued to exist for three centuries later; Xenophon mentions

under the name of Mespila, In the midst of his renovated capital, Sennacherib rebuilt the royal palace " with alabaster and cedar" with extreme magnificence. The remains of this palace are called by the It has been excavated present inhabitants of the country Koyundjik.

by Mr. Layard, and the greater part of the sculptures brought to the In building it Sennacherib anticipated a long duraBritish Museum.
and he addressed to his successors, in an inscription, which the second destruction of Nineveh, not long after, sup"This palace will in course of plied a bitterly ironical commentary: time grow old and fall to ruins ; I will that my successors rebuild the ruins, renew the inscriptions containing my name, restore the paintings, and cleanse and replace the bas-reliefs. Then may Asshur and Ishtar hear their prayers. But should anyone erase my writing and my name, may Asshur, the great god, the father of the gods, treat him as a rebel, take from him sceptre and throne, and break his sword." 5. But before long it was again necessary to attack Babylon, always
tion for his dynasty,

words

to

conquered, but always so rebellious that the repression of insurrections Asshurthere formed great part of the business of every Assyrian king.
nadin, eldest son of Sennacherib,
that city, died in 693.

whom

he had installed as prince

Irigibel,

in

He was

succeeded by a certain

who

* PIer.

i.

125.

These people are

referred to as Dinaites in Ezra iv. 9.

D D

 "
402

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

end of a year, ami was replaced by a personage called Mesisimordach, the fe^'m of whose name reveals a Babylonian origin. In the beginning of the year 688 an insurrection broke out in the country of Kar-Uunyash, the Characene of the classical geographers
also died at the

that

is,

the part of Chaldsea nearest the sea

the great city of Bet-

Yakin was the focus of the revolt. Sennacherib marched rapidly with his army to stifle the rebellion in its commencement. Not venturing to
await his arrival behind their walls, the inhabitants of Bet-Yakin emiin a body to Susiana, where the king, Kedornakhunta, had promised them assistance. The Assyrian king pursued them; fearing to risk his troops in the almost impassable marshes to the east of the canal of Gambul, the Shat-el-Arab of our days, he coasted by sea along the shores of Susiana adjoining Chalda'a, and carried devastation

gi-ated

with him.

But during this time Babylon revolted in concert with the king of Elam, in the rear of Sennacherib. A certain Suzub, son of Gatul, was
proclaimed king there.

When

the Assyrian king, returning victorious

on his way to Nineveh, he found his passage " I conquered Suzub," disputed by Suzub; a battle then took place. says Sennacherib, " and took him alive. I spared him as a hostage and proof of the assistance of the god Ninip. I brought him to Assyria. The Babylonian rebel was shut up, well guarded, in the city of Lakhir. In the following spring Sennacherib marched again to Susiana, as the king of that country had been in concert with the rebels. He devastated all the southern part of the countiy,the plain through which the Choaspes, the Euljeus, and the Pasitigris flow before falling into the Tigris. Thirty-four cities in this district were taken and burnt. "Imade, says the conqueror, "the smoke of these burning cities rise up to heaven like one vast sacrifice. Then Kedornakhunta, king of Elam, learned the He caused the rest of his men capture of his cities and was affrighted. to enter the lofty citadels to make resistance. He himself abandoned his capital, Madaktu (the Badaca of classical geographers, on the Eulaeus), and retired towards Khailda, in the mountains. I ordered an expedition against Madaktu." But at the moment when this decisive enterprise was to be attempted, Sennacherib retreated, as the augmies were unfavourable. Three months afterwards Kedornakhunta died, and was succeeded by his brother, Ummanmimanu. He remained 6. In 685, Suzub contrived to escape from his prison. at first for some months in Susiana, and being promised help by the
from his expedition,
w'as

new king

of that country, returned to Babylon.

"The

Babylonians," says

Sennacherib,

sovereignty of the Shumir and Accad.

He

"conferred on him the opened the treasure of the

pyramid, the gold and silver of the temples of Bel and Zarpanit ; he He said to plundered them to give to Ummanmimanu, king of Elam.

WAR
him,
'

IN SUSIANA.

403

Prepare your army and organise your forces, march towards Babylon, and come to our help.' The Susian, whom in a former ex-

pedition I had attacked,

had destroyed, gladly levied an army, and increased his power with chariots and horses. They came to commit crimes, like a cloud of locusts when it alights on the fields to destroy them. With a heart full of wrath, I hastily mounted my highest war chariot, that sweeps my enemies before it. I took in my hands the strong bow given me by the god Asshur. ... I I'ushed like the devouring flame on all these rebel armies, like the god Bin, the overwhelming. By the gi-ace of Asshur, my master, I marched towards them, to destroy them as my prey ; like a devastating tempest, I terrified my adversaries. Through the protection of Asshur, and by the storm of battle, I shook the force of their resistance, and I made their confidence tremble. The army of the rebels, thrown into confusion by my terrible attacks, retreated, and their chiefs deliberated, reduced to
I

and whose towns

lie

accepted the invitation.

taxed his

cities,

despair."

Sennacherib then relates hoM' he bribed the chief of the

staff

of the
the

army of the king of Elam, named Humba-undasha, who, betraying

victory over the combined

the plans of his master, enabled the Assyrian king to gain an easy

anny

of Susians and Chaldrean rebels,

numwar

bering 150,000 men.

"On

the wet earth, armour and arms, taken in

;

my

attacks, floated in the blood of enemies as in a river

for the

chariots that struck

down men and

and
I

beasts, had, in their course, crushed

I piled

the bleeding bodies and their limbs.

soldiers like trophies,

up the corpses of these

hands and feet. I mutilated those who were taken alive like straws, and as a puni.shment cut off their hands." Among the prisoners was found Nabubalarishkun, son of Merodach Baladan, who had joined the army. Ummanmimanu and Suzub both escaped with great difficulty from the conqueror, and took
cut off their

refuge in Susiana.
7.

In 684, Sennacherib solemnly dedicated his

all

new

palace at Nineveh,
all

the largest in

Assyria.

He
;

then thought himself freed from

anxiety with respect to Babylon

but in the following year Suzub

re-

turned once more to that

where he was received with enthusiasm. king of Elam had supplied him with troops to assist him. Another great battle took place, which finally ruined the cause of Suzub, and gave Babylon into the power of the Ninevite king. Exasperated by these persistent and continued revolts, Sennacherib chastised Babylon with tlie most terrible severity. In spite of its sacred character, res])ected by the Assyrians almost as much as by the Chaldceans, the city was given up to be plundered, and The most venerable religious monuin great part destroyed by fire. ments suffered from the fury of the Assyrian soldiers. Sennacherib
city,

As

in the

two preceding

revolts, the

D D

404
returned

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

in triumph to Nineveh, carrying with him as the most precious trophies of his expedition the statues of the gods taken by Marduk-

idinakhe from the city of liekali 418 years before,

Tiglath-pileser
I.,

as well as the royal signet of

when he conquered Shalmaneser I., a trophy

anger was

of the wars of Binbaliddin.

But when

his first burst of

over, he dared not carry to extremity his vengeance on the city that

was, in an especial sense, "the city of the gods," and take from it its ancient privilege of having a nominal king of its own, although de-

pendent on the king of Nineveh. He therefore installed, in the halfruined Babylon in 682, as king, his own fourth son, Esarhaddon [Asshurakhiddin] (Asshur has given brothers).

About this time, at the close of his reign, the troops of Sennacherib, according to the story of Berosus, came into serious collision in Cilicia, with the Greeks, who were then attempting to form colonies ; the Asand set up a stele to commemorate the event. Berosus adds that the city of Tarsus, on the coast of Cilicia, was then founded by Sennacherib, though other authors attribute its building to
Sardanapalus.
After a reign of twenty- three years, Sennacherib was, in 681, assassinated in the temple of his
syrians were victorious,

god Nisroch by

his

two

sons,

Adarmalik

and Asshursarossor.

Section IV.
I.

Esarhaddon [Asshurakhiddin] and

ASSHURBANIPAL.
681

647.

two assassins of Sennacherib derived no advantage from Esarhaddon [Asshurakhiddin] hastened from Babylon to Nineveh, compelled them to fly into Armenia, to escape the public indignation, and himself ascended the throne. Esarhaddon (681 to 667), like his father, was a warlike king, who carried the victorious Assyrian arms into distant lands. We know in detail all the mihtary exploits of the earlier years of his reign up to 672 (eponomy of Atarel, governor of Lakhir), the date of a cylinder of baked clay in the British Museum, on which these events are enumerated
their crime.

The

in their chronological order, but unfortunately without specifying the

year of each occurrence.

The

first

campaign was towards Phoenicia, where the obedience of

the people, as in Babylonia, was always doubtful.

city of Sidon, standing in the

"I

attacked the

cylinder just mentioned.

its

"I

midst of the sea," says the king, in the put to death all its great men I destroyed
;

walls and houses; I cast

its altars.

them

into the sea.

city,

destroyed the place

fled

of

Abdimilkut, king of the

sea.

had

from

my power
:

even into the midst of the

Like a

fish I traversed

the waves, and

humbled

his pride.

carried

away

all

that I could of his treasures

ESARHADDON
stuffs

IN SYRIA.

405

gold, silver, precious stones, amber, seal skins, sandal

wood and ebony, dyed purple and blue, all that his house contained. I transported into Assyria an immense number of men and women, oxen, sheep, and I settled the inhabitants of Syria, and of the seabeasts of burden.
shore in strange lands.
I built in Syria a fortress called

Dur-asshurin the

akhiddin, and there established

men whom my bow had subdued

mountains, and
It

towards the sea of the rising sun (the Caspian)."

close of this

was

at the

Phoenician campaign that Esarhaddon

attacked the kingdom of Judah.

King Manasseh attempted to resist, but was conquered, made prisoner, and confined some time in Babylon, But the Assyrian monarch soon restored him, and replaced him on the throne as a vassal king; his inscriptions register Manasseh as one of his Esarhaddon about the same time completed his colonisatributaries. tion of the Israelitish territory, establishing there large numbers of people from Lower Chalda;a and from Elam, reduced to captivity by
his wars.
2.

In

fact, after

two campaigns,

briefly related,

one in the land of

Mosyna;ci

Van and

the

other in the neighljourhood of the Black Sea, which

the

brought about

submission of the Tibareni (Tabal),

(Mashnaki), and of the Cimmerians (Gimirrai), who had already crossed the Caucasus, and commenced their invasions in Asia Minor, Esarhaddon was obliged to turn his arms against the part of Chalda bordering on the Persian Gulf in later times called Characene where Nabuzirshimtat, second son of Merodach Baladan, had succeeded in forming a small independent kingdom. The Assyrian king conquered and dethroned him, and placed his younger brother, Nahid-marduk, in

his place, with the

title

of vassal king.

But during

this

time a

certain Shamash-ibni.

new revolt occurred in Babylon, under a Not feeling himself strong enough to attempt
its fortifications

to hold that great city, as

had remained without

repairs

since

its last

capture by Sennacherib, he shut himself up in the neigh-

bouring city of Bet-Dakkurri, carrying with him the astrological Esarhaddon says, tablets from the temples of Babylon and Borsippa. respect to my sublime master, and to Nebo, I restored these "Out of
tablets,

and entrusted them to the men of Babylon and Borsippa. I placed on the throne Nabushallim, son of Balazu, who respected the

laws."

" The city of Ad-I)umu, the city of the power of the Arabians, that had been taken by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, the father who begot me, I again attacked, and led away the inhabitants captive into Assyria. The ambassador of the queen of the Arabs came to Nineveh with many presents, and bowed himself before me. He implored me
.

to restore their gods

listened to his prayer.

I restored the

images

of those gods that had been injured.

I caused the praises of

Asshur

"

4o6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and the glory of my name to be engraved on those images. I brought them and gave them back to him. I nominated to the sovereignty of the Arabs, Tabuya, a woman from my harem. As tlie price of the gods I had restored to that land, I increased the tribute my father had laid on them by sixty-five camels which I imposed on them over and above.
In the Book on the History of the Arabs we shall refer to the system of government of this country by queens invested also with tlie priesthood.

Here we shall simply say that the ca]Mtal, Ad-Dumu, is the Dumah of the Bible, the Daumat-el-djandal of the Arabian geographers of the
Middle Ages. At the end of this campaign, Esarhaddon also arranged the affairs of the Arabian kingdom of Hedjaz. The capital of this country, as we

know by the inscriptions of Asshurbanipal, was Yathrib, now Medina. The king, named Ha5an, having died, his son, Yala, was placed on the
and had to pay a considerable tribute. Next comes the history of another much more distant expedition, into the Arabian peninsula. This marks the extreme point to which, in this direction, the Assyrian armies penetrated, and where, moreover, they appeared but once. The object of this expedition was a district called Bazu, situated in the south, beyond 140 schoenes (about 1,000 males) of desert, and a mountain chain requiring forty hours for its
throne,

passage.

It

must, from these facts as to the distance, necessarily be a

Hadramaut, or of the Mahrah country. campaign, Esarhaddon was called on to put down a rebellion of the petty king of the district of Gambul, whose subjects lived like fishes in the midst of waters and marshes " on the eastern bank of the Shat-el-Arab. He afterwards subdued, after a long and arduous war, part of Southern Media, and penetrated even into Western Persia, where he made prisoners the governors of two cities, who were named Sitraphernes and Hyphernes. 3. Although he had built at Nineveh a new palace, "a house of booty," where, in the foundations, was discovered the British Museum cylinder, Esarhaddon usually lived at Babylon. He exhibited a marked preference for that city, where he had lived as viceroy before the
district in the interior of

On

his return

from

this distant

'

'

death of his father.

Assyria.

Thus also he ensured the continued submission of Babylon, whilst he was always secure of the fidelity of Nineveh and

He it was who undertook to make Babylon the greatest and most beautiful city in the world. He commenced there the gigantic walls, and decided on the plan of those great works, resumed in after times by Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, which contributed ,0 much
to the glory of Babylon.

In the cylinder in the British

the western countries

Museum we find a list of the who were paying tribute in the year 672.
of Judah, the Phoenician princes (to

kings in

These

were

Manasseh, king

whom we

ABDICATION OF ESARHADDON.
shall

407
the History of

have occasion to

refer

again in our

Book on

Phoenicia), the ten kings of the Island of Cyprus, the greater part of

them with names

easily recognised as

Hellenic element was then dominant in Cyprus, and that

Greek, a fact proving that the it submitted

with a good grace to Ninevite suzerainty. The names are /Egistus, king of Idalium ; Pythagoras, king of Citium; Cius (?) king of Salamis;

Damas, king of Ariel, king of Soli Curium; Romis, king of Tamassus Damus, king of Amathus Onaerges, king of Limenium and Baali, king of Upri. Esarhaddon increased his empire on this side m 672 by a new and
Ithodagon, king of Paphos;
; ; ; ;

important conquest.

He

again adopted the policy of his father with

ill-feeling of

regard to Egypt, taking advantage of the then governed each of the

cities

the princes

who
in

of the Delta towards their suzerain,

forces of the latter

the Ethiopian king, Tahraka.

The

were defeated

a decisive battle, and Esarhaddon possessed himself of the whole of

Egypt

as far as the cataracts of Syene.

From

that time he

styled

himself, on the

monuments, " King of Egypt and Ethiopia," as well as Assyria," and "Vicegerent of the Gods at Babylon." "King of Assyrian garrisons were stationed in the chief cities of Egypt, and new The country was divided into Assyrian names given to some of them. twenty petty principalities, under the supremacy of the Saite prince, Necho, to whom was assigned the town of Memphis.
This position of
seriously
ill

affairs

continued until 668.

Esarhaddon, being then

of the sickness of which he ultimately died, and finding

affairs

himself unable to administer the

of so great an empire, decided

on abdicating
in the

in favour of his eldest son, Asshurbanipal.

In a procla-

mation, a copy of which has been discovered, bearing date the 12th Air,

eponomy

his subjects,

and of his where he continued to reign. In the British Museum there is a fragment of a letter, written at this time by Asshurbanipal to his father, where he gives to Esarhaddon the title of king of Babylon, and entitles
himself king of Assyria-

of Marlarmi (May 668), he announced his resolution to and gave up to Asshurbanipal the government of Nineveh whole empire, reserving to himself only his beloved Babylon,

His second son, ShamulBut the following year Esarhaddon died. (the Saosduchin of the canon of Ptolemy), succeeded him as king of Babylon and Chalckea, separated from, but subordinate to, In 668, Tahraka, taking advantage of the illness and abdicaNineveh.

shamugin

tion of Esarhaddon, as well as of the feeling of insecurity

produced by

a change in the government, reconquered Egypt from tiie Assyrians. 647) was a worthy son of his warlike father, 4. Asshurbanipal (667 and under him the Assyrian armies fully maintained their reputation.

He commenced

by directing

his efforts

towards Egypt, and even before

the death of his father inaugurated his reign

by three successive cam-

4o8
paigns on
tlie

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

hanks of the Nile, advancing victoriously in eacii of them In the second he installed Necho on the throne of the city of Amen; in the third he came to avenge that prince, who had been put to death by Rot-Amen, son-in-law and successor of Tahraka. He then arranged the administration of Egypt on an entirely Assyrian basis but after his departure Iris officers were unable to maintain themselves there, and his third campaign was thus nothing more than a razzia on an enormous scale. Nevertheless Assyrian supremacy was paraas far as Thebes.
;

mount
ruled

for

some time

in

Lower Egypt, and

the kings of the Dodecarchy,

in the Delta paid tribute to

Nineveh, whilst the Ethiopians of Piankhi

Upper Egypt.
already spoken of the details of this war in our
It is the

We have

Book on the

History of Egypt.

only one of the campaigns of Asshurbanipal

that has as yet been studied

historical texts of this king,

by Assyrian scholars
in the British to

now

a large number of Museum, have not been

;

even published

and we are therefore compelled

mention very briefly

the results of a hasty view of the original

monuments in London, and of the more profound study of some portions made by M. Oppert. Phoenicia had revolted at the same time that Rot-Amen invaded
Eg}'pt.

After his third campaign on the banks of the Nile, in 666,

the Canaanitish

Asshurbanipal, on his return to Assyria, chastised his rebellious vassals

who governed

cities.
its

He
Baal.

first

took Accho, next Tyre, admitting to mercy

king,

named
difficult

Aradus made a more stubborn

resistance, the siege

was

cost many lives; but finally the city was taken, and its king, named Vakindu, killed himself to avoid falling alive into the conqueror's hands. Asshurbanipal made prisoners of the eight sons of Yakindu, a

and

list

he gives; but he allowed Azbaal only, the eldest, to live, he installed as king of Aradus. The other seven were put to death. Phoenicia thus forcibly brought to obedience, Asshurbanipal marched on Cilicia, where also a revolt had broken out. A short camof

whom

whom

paign sufficed to quell the revolt, and the king of the country, as a

mark

of submission, gave
It is

up

his daughter for the

harem of the Ninevite

monarch.

during this war that a widely-spread tradition places the

foundation of the city of Tarsus.

The

following year (665), Asshurbanipal was at Nineveh, where he

an ambassador from Gyges, king of the Lydians, whose kingdom was invaded by the Cimmerians, and who, not being able to repulse them unaided, declared himself a vassal of the king of Assyria
received
to obtain assistance against these formidable enemies.

An

auxiliary

Assyrian force was sent to him, and by the aid of these troops Gyges
gained a victory, and sent the two principal chiefs of the Cimmerians The supremacy of the Assyrian empire was thus prisoners to Nineveh.
established over the whole of Asia Minor, as far as the

^gean

Sea.

GREAT REBELLION.
5.

409

But during

this

the Assyrian empire since

time the most formidable storm that had threatened tlie disaster of Asshurhlihish was impending.

The younger brother of Asshurbanipal, Shamulshamugin, governed, as we have ah-eady said, Babylon and Chaldasa. He conspired to overthrow
his elder brother

and

to seat himself

on the throne of Nineveh.

To

accomplish this he conspired with the king of Susiana and the majority of the tributaiy princes of the southern states of the monarchy.
In 663 he
lifted the

standard of revolt.

To bring his

ambitious projects
the Chalda^ans,

into accordance with the feelings of nationality

among

he summoned

Nabubelshum, grandson of the great Merodach Baladan, the indomitable champion of Babylonian independence, and Teumman, as king of Assyria invested him with the royalty of Babylon. king of Elam, declared in his favour and marched into Babylonia to Mathan, king of the Nabatheans, his assistance \vith a numerous army. and Ywaite, king of the Arabs of Hedjaz, also joined in the revolt and the latter sent troops to assist Shamulshamugin, under the command of a Sheikh, named Aym, son of Their. Psammetik, the Saite king,
to his side
this occasion to overthrow his colleagues of the Dodecarchy, and to re-establish the complete independence of Egypt. Gyges, forgetting the duties of the vassalage he had voluntarily assumed two years before, assisted Psammetik, and a force of Lydians contributed

took advantage of

their assistance to drive out the Assyrian garrisons

still

remaining in the

Delta.

This was a terrible position of affairs the revolt broke out simulivl most at all points, in a way that proved a concerted plan; and imless its progress could be at once arrested before it extended to the Asshurbanipal confronted the northern provinces, the empire was lost.
:

taneously

danger with energy and coolness, accepting the past as irrevocable he gave up all fresh attempts on Egypt, and regarded the accession of Psammetik as an accomplished fact. In Lydia, not being able to go himself to punish the treason of Gyges, and also requiring to concentrate
;

all

the forces of Assyria in another quarter so as to crush the rebellion

centre,

in its

he summoned the Cimmerians to invade that country again. They whole of Lydia, and captured the city, but not the citadel, of Sardis. Gyges was his son, Ardys, who succeeded him, hastened to killed in this invasion
willingly responded to his call, devastated the
;

make

his submission to Asshurbanipal,

retreat.

who

then persuaded the Cim-

merians to

Thus freed from all danger of a diversion on the side of Lydia, Asshurbanipal marched against his brother, with a view of crushing
the revolt at
its

fountain head.

The campaign seems

allies,

to

have been

short and decisive.

Asshurljanipal, in several encounters, decisively

defeated the army of the Chalda-ans and their

of Elam, and

Teumman, king

Aym,

son of Their, forcing the one to retire on Susiana,

410

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

and the other on Arabia. He then made his triumphal entry into Babylon. Shamulshamugin, terrified, fell unable to continue the struggle ; he made his submission, and implored the clemency of his brother. Generally the kings of Assyria showed themselves pitiless in such cases it was an established state rule to put conquered rebels to death. But Asshurbanipal remembered that he who had thrown, himself at his feet was his brother he pardoned him, and re])laced him on the throne of the gi-eat Babylonian city, where Shamulshamugin
;
;

remained for the rest of his life faithful to his Ninevite suzerain. No doubt the fraternal clemency of Asshurbanipal must be attributed to
the entreaties and advice of his sister, Seruya-Edirat, who seems to have exercised great influence over him, and who is mentioned on several monuments with her two brothers. 6. But though the king of Babylon, the first author of this revolt, made his submission thus early, it was quite otherwise with his allies, who appeared resolved to carry on the war, and whom it was necessary
that the king of Assyria should conquer,
tranquillity of his empire.
if

he desired to ensure the

Wishing to encounter the most serious danger first, Asshurbanipal advanced towards Susiana. Teumman, with four of his relations, Ummanibi, Tamaritu, Indabibi, and Ummanaldash,

who commanded

the four great divisions of the country,

and prepared to invade Chaldsea. He had afforded refuge in his kingdom to Nabubelshum and his followers, who had promised him, as soon as his army had passed the frontier, to raise all the provinces of the Lower Euphrates in insurrection. Asshurbanipal anticipated his movements, and entered Susiana. After several engagements of minor importance, a great battle was fought on the banks of the Ulai (Eulasus) it ended in the defeat of the Susianians. Teumman and his son, a mere lad, were made prisoners. Asshurbanipal appeared before Susa, which opened its gates to him, and there installed on the throne, as an Assyrian vassal, Ummanaldash, who had been taken prisoner in one of the earlier battles of the campaign, and had
hastily assembled fresh troops,
;

entered the service of the Assyrian king.

Immense

sculptured pictures, similar to those that decorate the pylons

of the temples of Egypt, and, like them, containing hundreds of figures, give us all the details of thi^ successful war; they were brought from

now in the British Museum. They contain a complete drama, with the story worked out in the most complete manner. first see the battle that decided the fata of the
the palace of Koyundjik, and are

We

country, a short distance in front of Susa.

The Elamite

warriors, in

spite of their brave resistance, are cut to pieces

and driven into the

In the next
is

Eulseus,

where numbers are swallowed up by the waves.

representation, Asshurbanipal, profiting by his victory,

marching on
its

Susa.

We

next see the city (marked with

its

name), with

crenelated

WAR

IN SUSIANA.

411

ramparts and its flat-roofed houses, in the midst of a forest of palmThe Assyrian king has stopped his cliariot at a short distance trees.

from the gate, and two of his officers present Ummanaldasli to the people, as the king whom his sovereign will gives them, in place of the Then, whilst the bodies of king who has dared to fight against him. the last defenders of the national independence are still floating past
the walls
all

down

the Eulteus, the people of the capital, terrified out of

reason, and hoping to appease the angry conqueror

by the depth of

tlieir

abasement, issue in a body, men,

women and

children, with harps,

flutes

and tambourines, and welcome with song and dance the new

During this time, and a short king installed by the foreign invader. distance only from the scene of the rejoicings, the leaders of the vanquished army are expiating in tortures the crime of having dared to
defend their king and country
ears cut
off,
;

one

is

flayed alive, the others have their

their eyes put out, their beards

and

nails torn off.

These

scenes, comprising an immense number of figures, and executed with wonderful finish, have no more perspective than the Egyptian historical sculptures nevei-theless, we cannot but admire the life and movement
;

exhibited by

all

the groups, the truth to nature, and the admirable sim-

plicity of the attitudes.

Teumman was

decapitated; an inscription,

now

in the British

Mu-

seum, records the event. The war was not, however, concluded, but raged with gi-eat fury in the mountains of Susiana till the year 661. Ummanibi, Tamaritu, and Indabibi successively assumed the crown,

and maintained the struggle

in the

most inaccessible parts of the country;

whilst, under the Assyrian protection, Ummanaldash reigned at Susa. But all these three chiefs fell in succession on the field of battle there
;

was no longer anyone to head the national resistance, and the authority Asshurbanipal of Ummanaldash was recognised throughout the land. retired with his forces into Assyria, considering the war as concluded. 7. Nevertheless, the Assyrian army had hardly re-entered its owii country when Ummanaldash, who had hitherto played the part of an
obedient vassal of Assyria,

suddenly changed his line of conduct.

for

Throwing

off the
spirit

mask he had worn

of the Elamites,

two

years, incited doubtless

by

the national

who
for

detested the rule of foreigners

and had given up the struggle only

threw
off his allegiance

to the Ninevite

want of a chief to head them, he monarch, and made great mili-

tary preparations.

concealed in the mountains were

Nabubelshum and the Chaldasan patriots who .were summoned to court, and entered into

active correspondence with their partisans in the south of Babylonia.

In the spring of 660, Asshurbanipal found himself obliged to undertake a new war in Susiana. Instead of entering the country l)y the way of Chalda;a, as in the preceding campaigns, he marched from the northwest directly from Assyria.

412

ANCltNT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

first

took the city of Rashi. capital of the district of Rash, the northern part of Susiana, between the mountains of Mesobatene and the Tigris; next tlie city of Hamanu, in the same
situated
in
district,

He

but

further

south.

Ummanaldash was with

classical

his

troops

at

geographers; on learning the victorious advance of the Assyrians, he became alarmed and took refuge in Susa. The Assyrian army passed the river Itite, the Choaspes of
the Greeks, without striking a blow, occupied Madaktu, and also
dashi, another city

Madaktu, the Badaca of the

Un-

on Susa.

Thence Asshurbanipal marched Ummanaldash did not venture to await him there, and
river.

on the same

retired towards the

mountains with the bulk of his army, leaving only Asshurbanipal took Susa by storm, and then pushed on in pursuit of Ummanaldash, who retreated before him. He took the towns of Din, Pidilma, and Bubilu, the exact situation of which cannot be determined in the present imperfect state of our knowledge of the ancient geography of Susiana. The Elamite king then retreated to the mountains of Banun. The Assyrians overtook
a garrison in the capital.

and carried the town of Banun by assault; but he managed Nabubelshum, who had not left him. Then Asshurbanipal, tired of this fruitless pursuit, adopted other measures to compel the submission of the country and its king. He returned to Susa, and gave up the city to be pillaged by his troops. The royal treasures and archives were carried off to Nineveh. The temples were opened and systematically profaned the statues of the gods, "that no eye had ever seen," as the cylinder in the British Museum says, were brought out to be sent to Assyria ; and this seems to show that in the Susianian temples the images of the gods were placed in a sort of "holy of holies," inaccessible to the mass of worshippers. Asshurbanipal here gives a list of the gods whose statues he
there,

him

to escape them, together with

carried

off,

list

we

think

it

well to repeat, as this

is

the only ancient

document extant relative to the national Elamite gods. They were . Shumud, Bagamar, Parlikira, Amman-kashibar, Ansapata, Ragiba, Shimgam, Karsha, Kirshamash, Shudami, Aipaksina, Dilala, Panindimri, .Shilagara, Napshu, and Kindakurbu. These strangely-named gods seem to have presented a great analogy with the gods of Chaldaea and Assyria, but under totally different names. When he had thus pillaged and devastated Susa, and destroyed the temple, where was the oracle consulted by all the Elamite people with the greatest reverence, Asshurbanipal began to scour the countiy, carrying fire and sword on all sides, burning towns and villages and
all

the houses, destroying the

crops, cutting doM^n the plantations,

slaughtering the flocks and herds, and reducing the populace to slavery.

These

frightful

devastations went on uninterruptedly for a

month and

twenty-five days, and were spread over a great extent of territory.

The

CONQUESTS OF ASSHURBANIPAL,
terrified

413

people from all quarters begged for peace. The soldiers who were with Ummanaldash deserted, in order to make their submission. He himself entered into negotiations with the Assyrian monarch. Nabubelshum of Chalda^a, in despair, fearing that he should be given up, made his armour-bearer kill him. Ummanaldash cut off the head of the dead man and sent it to the king of Assyria, imploring pardon for himself. Asshurbanipal received him witli kindness, and having taken guarantees for his future fidelity, confirmed him in the kingdom

with the

title

of vassal king.

small bas-relief from Koyundjik,

now

in the British

Museum,

represents Asshurbanipal banqueting with his queen in the gardens of

The head of Nabubelshum, salted and dried, is suspended from one of the trees of the garden facing the king, so that, during the feast, he might enhance his satisfaction by the view of this
the harem at Nineveh.
trophy.
8. The Elamite wars were now ended. The ai-ms of Asshurbanipal had triumphed in this quarter, and he had come victorious out of a struggle that had all but overwhelmed the Assyrian empire. But the revolt still continued in Arabia and Nabathea. The king of Assyria resolved to reduce these countries to obedience, and to punish the conduct of the kings. Ywaite, son of Nuray, king of the Arabs, had

taken advantage of the events of the

in

last

few years of the rebellion

the Assyrians
his

Chalda;a and of the

war

in

Susiana to increase enormously the

;

extent of his states without opposition from

generals,

two
this

Aym

and Abyate,

botli sons of Their,

had accomplished

by

their conduct of the war, for

we have no

indication that the king

himself was present in any one battle

; he had acquired a vast empire, comprising not only Hedjaz, his hereditary kingdom, but also the greater

part of the Arabian peninsula, the various parts of the Nedjed, Djebel

Shammar,

Djof, the desert of Syria, and even the

is

whole western bank of

called Irak Arabi.

the lower part of the Euphrates, that which

now

The war commenced

paign was occupied
of
its

in 659,

and

lasted three years.

The

first

cam-

in the

reconquest of Irak Arabi, and in the recapture

the

towns one after tlie other. The most important was Hirata, on where was afterwards Hira, so celebrated in the Arabian In the second camhistories of the first centuries of the Christian era. paign, 658, the Assyrian army commenced by crossing the Syrian desert, and advancing to tlie central plateau of Arabia; the whole of this jjlateau
site

was overrun, and we shall follow the itinerary of the army in our Book on the History of the Arabians. A great number of fortified places were taken in tliese districts, and at last tlic Assyrians penetrated into Nedjed, to a city called Corassid, where the army awaited the opening of the third campaign. In this year, 657, Nedjed being completely
subdued, Asshurbanipal attacked Hedjaz, thus striking at the heart of


414

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Sea,

the power of Ywaite.

Red

Froin Corassid he advanccfl to the shore of the where he successively besieged and took Djisda (Djeddah) and

Yanbo; and lastly croMTied his successes by the capture of the great city of Yathrib (now Medina). Ywaite, in despair, implored Aman, which was granted him his two generals, Aym and Abyate, were given up to Asshurbanipal, and flayed alive by the order of that king. Some basreliefs from Koyundjik, now in the British Museum, represent episodes of this Arabian war, the defeat of a tribe mounted on camels, and the surprise of an encampment where the warriors are being killed in their
;

tents.

tised the

Asshurbanipal returned from Hedjaz into Syria, and on his way chasNabatheans their country was devastated, and their capital taken by the army that had conquered the Arabs. The king, Mathan,
;

threw himself at the feet of the Ninevite king, and obtained pardon. This final act in the great drama, opened by the revolt of Shamulshamugin, was short, and occupied only the latter months of the year 657. In 655, Asshurbanipal was obliged once more to march his army into the land of Elam, to repress a revolt against Ummanaldash, who, since
his submission,

had remained

a faithful vassal to Assyria.

We

have

at

present no information as to the last eight years of his reign.

supremacy over the island of Greeks We have every reason to believe that he was the warlike and conquering Sardanapalus, of whom many classical writers speak, carefully distinguishing him from the voluptuous and effeminate king of the same name, under whom the first Ninevite empire came to an end. With regard to this prince, the Greek historians of the Alexandrian period have fallen into two errors, sufficiently curious to be made the subject of remark, and plainly caused by a mistaken reading of Assyrian inscriptions; thus proving that there were among the Greeks some scholars who studied cuneiform writing and the monuments, though none of them attempted to read the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Clitarchus* relates that in an inscription existing at Tarsus, where we may admit that this king might have been in the course of his expeditions, and have left a monument of his passage, that Sardanapnlus calls himself "Son of Anakyndaraxes. " But this supposed patronymic is nothing more than the common title almost always added to the name of Assyrian kings, " I, the great king of Assyria " Anakunadasharriiasshiw, from which an incompetent reader has made Anakyndaraxes, and taken it for the name of a man. Other writers say that Sardanapalus was surnamed Conosconcoleros; here again we find a common
9.

His connection with Lydia, and

his

Cyprus,

made Asshurbanipal known

to the

Clitarchus ap. Arrian, Anab. Athen. viii., p. 335; xii. p. 529.

ii.

5;

conf.

Strab.

xiv. p.

672;


INVASION OF THE MEDES.
415

The kings of Assyria were in royal title mistaken for a proper name. the habit of styling themselves " I, the king, vicegerent of the god Asshur," and this title is almost always written ideographically by signs
mistaken for phonetics, and read phonetically, would give the pronunciation Kumisskunkilasshiir ; whence arose the supposed Conoswhich,
if

concoleros.

Very many of the

en-ors of the

Greek

historians, especially

those of the Alexandrian age, as to the history of the Assyrian kings, may be traced to erroneous readings of this kind.

Asshurbanipal completed the magnificent palace

at

Nineveh, com-

menced by Sennacherib,
finest

the sculptures of the part he built are the

and best executed specimens of Assyrian art at present known. had established there a well furnished library ; its remains, discovered by Mr. I>ayard, are now in the British Museum, and have rendered invaluable assistance to the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions.

He

Section V.

End of the Second Assyrian Empire Final

Fall of Nineveh, 647606
b.c.

625), son and successor of Asshurbanicrown of Babylon to that of Nineveh, probably dethroning Shamulshamugin, for he is found to have been master of the great Clialdsean city a few months after his accession, and it is very unIn likely that both the sons of Esarhaddon died in the same year. this king, the Cinneladanus of the Greek authors, Assyria the reign of gained her last military success. A single united kingdom had succeeded in Media, to the loose confederation of chiefs, that had afforded to Phraortes Sargon and his son such facilities for their conquests. ascended the throne in 657, and expelled the Assyrians from the positions they still held in the country, conquered Persia and all the Iranian lands on this side the Hindoo Koosh and the deserts of CarHaving thus erected the Median monarchy into a vast military mania. empire, he thought himself able to undertake again the work of Arbaces, and to destroy the power of Nineveh. He therefore descended into A great battle Assyria, but Asshuredililani met him with a large army. took place at the foot of the mountains Phraortes was killed, and the
I.

Asshuredililani III. (647

pal, reunited the

Median army
power
fell

dispei^sed.
its

Nevertheless the Assyrian empire approached

into decay, its treasures

end,

its

military

were exhausted, whilst the neighbourIn 625 Cyaxares, king of the Medes, in power. ing nations increased and successor of Phraortes, who had subdued Asia Minor as far as the river Halys, taking advantage of the death of Asshuredililani and of the consequent disturbances in Assyria, laid siege to Nineveh, whilst the Chaldaan Nabopolassar raised an insurrection in Babylon where he

4i6

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

proclaimed himself king, and restored independence to that country. Nineveh was in danger of falling, when it was saved for a time by the invasion of the Scythians, who, like a devastating torrent, overran the land of the Medes, and held the people in subjection for nineteen
years.
2.

of

whom we

Saruc or Assaracus, possibly another Esarhaddon [Asshurakhiddin], have no monuments, then ascended the throne, 625 to

606, and as the Scythian invasion had given a respite to Nineveh, governed during this time in tranquillity, but he ruled an empire weakened, debased and dismembered, without strength or vitality, and from this degraded state he did not even attempt to raise it. "When

Cyaxares had succeeded in clearing his kingdom of the hordes of Turanian invaders, he again appeared under the walls of Nineveh, more than ever resolved to complete the work of Arbaces, and to annihilate the city whose yoke had fallen so heavily on all Asia. Nabopolassar and his Babylonians advanced to his assistance, with all the good-will that Phul had brought to the help of Arbaces. After a long and close
siege.

Nineveh

fell

and Assaracus,

like his predecessor, Asshurlikhish,

city, burned its temples and of the splendid Nineveh of Sennacherib, the glory of Asia, there remained only a heap of ruins (606). This great disaster that changed the face of Asia, is not recorded on any known monument, and is nowhere mentioned by any of the ancient classical writers (except Berosus), who have confused this capture and destruction of Nineveh with the ruin of the first Assyrian empire in 788. The Hebrew people alone, by the voice of their prophets, have handed down to us the memory of this great destruction in it, lively faith and the remembrance of their own misfortunes made them see the terrible effects of Divine vengeance. The prophet Nahum says " (The burden of Nineveh). The Lord is a jealous God, and a revenger (/iiarg.). The Lord revengeth and is furious. He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily. For the Lord hath turned away the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the emptiers have emptied them out, and marred their vine branches. The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet the chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the fir-

killed himself.

The

conquerors destroyed the

and

palaces,

trees shall be terribly shaken.

The

chariots shall rage in the streets,

:

they shall justle one against another in the broad ways

they

shall

seem

like torches, they shall

:

run like the lightnings.

;

He

shall recount

his worthies

they shall stumble in their walk

they shall

make
.
.

haste

to the wall thereof,

the rivers shall

and the defence shall be prepared. The gates of be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. But
.
:

Nineveh

is

of old like a pool of water

yet they shall flee away.

Stand,


FINAL DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH.
stand, shall they cry
silver,
;

417
the spoil of

but none shall look back.

:

Take ye

none end of the store and She is empty, and void, and glory out of all the pleasant furniture. waste and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness. The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn her and chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers
take the spoil of gold
for there
is
:

shall

no more be heard.

And

it

shall

come

to pass, that all they

is

that look

upon thee

shall flee

from thee, and say, Nineveh

of Assyria

laid waste:
.

who Thy

will

bemoan her ? whence

shall I seek comforters for thee ?

:

shepherds slumber,
is

O kmg
is

thy nobles shall dwell

/;/

the dust: thy people

gathereth them.
grievous
for
i.
;

all that

upon the mountains, and no man no healing of thy bruise thy wound is hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee:
scattered

There

upon
ii.

whom

hath not thy wickedness passed continually

iii.

'

(Nahum

2;

I 13;

7,

i^^,

I9)-

This prophecy was

literally

accomplished

only two centuries after

the terrible catastrophe, Xenophon, who with ihe Ten Thousand passed its site, does not even mention the name of Nineveh, nor do the historians

of the age of Alexander.

A colony was established on the ruins by the Romans, under the name of Ninus, and destroyed by the Sassanians. From that time every remembrance of Nineveh was entirely lost, even in the place where the city had stood. A town was built in the Middle Ages on the right bank of the Tigris, opposite the site of the royal city It is only in our own times of Sennacherib, called by the Arabs Mosul.
that the ruins of the capital of Assyria have been discovered, buried

imder the

soil that

has covered them for

2,

500 years.

CIVILISATION,

CHAPTER IV. MANNERS, AND MONUMENTS

ASSYRIA.
and Social Organisation.

OF

Section

I.

Politic.vl

I. TiiK Assyrian monarchy presented, undoubtedly, like the first Hamite empire of Babylon, whence it borrowed so much of its civilisation, a type of all later Asiatic monarchies, those of the Moslem caliphs,

E E


4i8

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Achcemenian and Sassanian Persians
at

as well as those of the

a type we

may

still

see in the

Ottoman empire
all liberty

Constantinople, and also in

in

Russia, as opposing, even in our

obstacles to the progress of

own days and

Europe, insurmountable
;

and civilisation an unbounded, despotism, interrupted from time to time only by revolutions unrestrained
plotted in the palace.

In Assyria, however, the king was not, as in Egypt, worshipped as a god; the monuments of Nineveh and of the neighbouring cities bear no trace of such religious worship as the Egyptian monuments prove to have been offered to the Pharaohs we do not even find anything to
;

lead us to suppose that the king was honoured by an Apotheosis.

considered as a mere man, and when in the he addressed the gods, his language, in complete contrast with the common custom of pagan lands, is remarkable for exhibiting a strong feeling of the weakness of humanity in the presence of deity^ An example of this that the king was as much a sinner as other men. beautiful prayer of king Asshurbanipal, on an unpublished is found in a

The king was always

inscriptions

tablet in the British

Museum.*
shines in thine eternal face dispel

"May the look of pity that

" "

my griefs.

May I never feel the anger and wrath of the God. May my omissions and my sins be wiped out. " May I find reconciliation with him, for I am the
:

servant of his

power, the adorer of the great gods. " May thy powerful face come to my help

may it

shine like heaven,

and bless me with happiness and abundance of riches. " May it bring forth in abundance, like the earth, happiness and every
sort of good."

in his hands, with regard to other

;

man, who was so humble in the presence of the gods, held men, the double power, .spiritual and was both a sovereign pontiff and an autocrat he was temporal he called "the Vicegerent of the Gods on earth"; and his authority, thus emanating from a divine source, was as absolute over the soul as the
But
this
;

body.

The monuments give us an insight into the daily life of the court of Nineveh; pictures of this nature alternate with scenes in the wars that In his raged unceasingly during the whole duration of the monarchy. palace, which was also a citadel, the king was surrounded by a numerous Their chief court, where the chief positions were filled by eunuch.s. (Rab-saris), exercised a general supervision over the whole court, and, like the Kizlar Aga, or chief of the black eunuchs at Constantinople in
our

own

days, was, next to the sovereign, the

first

dignitary of the

empire.
*

He

followed the king to war, as also did the chief priest and

Marked K,
is

addressed

163. The name of the god to unfortunately wanting.

whom

this

prayer was

GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCES.

closed arabas in rear of the army.

419

the whole court, including the king's wives, who were carried in carefully-

Among

the great ofticers of the

royal household are found also the controller of the palace (Mil-hekal),
the grand cupbearer (Rab-sake), the captain of the guards,

who

also

discharged the duties of provost-marshal, and of chief of the executioners.

These

officers of the palace,

employed about the person of the

king and
the

in duties specially officers

time the principal

connected with him, were also at the same of state, the heads of the government. With

(Milik), the commander-in-chief of the army (Tartan), and the " governor of the land," a minister of the interior, or

minister of state

home

secretary, they

formed a

sort of cabinet, to direct the affairs

of

the empire under the supreme authority of the king,

who was frequently immersed in the pleasures of his harem, and indifferent to business. But they did not succeed to their offices by any hereditary title, as in a feudal monarchy ; they were nominated and removed at the pleasure of the sovereign, whose caprice frequently led him to seek in the lowest ranks of the people for persons to fill the highest positions, and then to humble to the dust in a moment those whom he had exalted to
honour.
2.

The numerous
two

provinces of the vast Assyrian empire were divided

into

classes, those

under governors directly appointed by the king,

and those that were merely in a state of vassalage. We have already spoken of the organisation of these last, comprising the greater part
of the conquered countries.

The

vassal states preserved, as the Assy-

rian inscriptions expressly say, their traditional organisation

and
;

their their

own own

peculiar laws, only occasionally modified by the suzerain

royal families remained on the throne, obliged only to recognise

as master the king of kings, to pay him annually a considerable tribute, and to furnish a large contingent to his armies. We have already spoken of the extraordinary respect that the kings of Assyria, especially those of the old empire, showed for the legitimate hereditary succession to the crown in conquered countries, a feeling that constantly led them to reinstate on the throne the son and legitimate heir of a vassal king whose rebellion had been punished with death in its most terrible form. It was only after a long-continued series of rebellions, after repeated acts of high treason, that the king of Assyria deprived a tributary pro-

vince of

its
it

privileges, and, according to the regular official fornuda,

like the

Assyrians" that is, made it a province under the nile of a governor sent from Nineveh, as Sargon did to the kingdom ot Israel and attempted to do in Babylon.
"treated

The provinces thus governed comprised Assyria itself and some conquered countries which it was necessary to hold in very close subjecThey were governed by satraps, or governors, appointed and tion.
recalled

by the

king, and selected from

among

the officers of his court

E E

420
tlieir

ANCIENT
:

II1ST(>RV

OF THE EAST.

rank varied according to the ini]K)rtance of the province or city

where each governed the four Iiii^diest in station seem to iiave been tlie governors of Nineveh, Calah, Ellasar, and Arbil. After thcni were class, if we may use such an expression, the reckoned in tiie first governors of Nisibis, Arabkha, Resen, Lakhir, Kirrur, Gozan, Rezepii,
Mazaniua, and Carchemish.

One of

the principal duties of the satra])s, or governors, was to receive

or in kind, and from it they made a deducLike the satraps of the Persian empire in later times, and the Turkish pachas of our own days, they had the command of the military garrisons of their provinces, and levied and organised the annual contingent for the army. They were assisted by a supreme jutige and by a superintendent of the revenue; after whom came a large number of judges and subordinate functionaries, distributed over all the divisions and subdivisions of the provinces. The lowest class of officer in each town was a local magistrate, who was unable to act without the consent of a sort of municipal council, over which he presided. 3. For the business of the central administration, the government of the provinces and the quasi-diplomatic relations between the sovereign and his principal vassals, Assyria had a body of scribes, as numerous as that of Egypt, and an office system as complicated and carefully organised. Ruling over so many diverse races, the Assyrian monarchs could neither use one single official language, nor translate their official orders into all the languages of conquered provinces; it was necessary Three languages were chosen for official therefore to make a selection. use, and three separate "chanceries" for the business of the three great ethnographic divisions of the empire. This is a system necessarily adopted in all empires embracing a number of different races, instead of ruling over one single and distinct people, the system adopted now-a-days

the tribute either in

tion for themselves.

money

in Austria.

In the Assyrian empire the three chanceries, as is proved by numerous texts and monuments, were the Chaldaso- Assyrian, the Turanian, and The first managed the business of the central provinces, the Aramaean. those of the Tigro-Euphrates Basin, Assyria and Babylonia. The second

affairs of the country to the north and north-east, where especially the Turanian, mixed it is true with some other and very diverse elements, was very numerous, and where, as the Assyrian kings found it most docile, submissive, less desirous of independence than

administered the

either the Arian or Japhetic element, they always desired to give

it

the

preponderance.

The Aramaean chancery took charge

of

all

the western

kingdom of Israel, and the Arab tribes, who spoke dialects differing from the Syriac, but received the decrees of the king of kings in that language. The Syrian or Aramaean races, in fact, after having at first energetically resisted the Ninexite conquest in
provinces, Phoenicia, the

421

ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE.

Osrhoene and the north of Syria, had
gave
to the Babylonians, in the

completely with the great Mesopotamian empire; and

end identified themselves in later days

and also

to the Persians, the

same support

as

they liad done to the Assyrians.

constant

The Aramieans
;

thus became the

and devoted

su]iporters

of the great empire in the whole

western part of the Semitic world

and

in

these countries an extension

of the effective and military power of Assyria was always accompanied

by an extension of tlie influence of the Aramaean language. When the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had fallen before the power, the one of
Sargon. the other of Nebuchadnezzar, it required only a few generations under the yoke of the great empire to make these people forget the use of the Hebrew, and adopt a Syriac dialect. 4. In the hall of the archives in the palace of Koyundjik a number of petitions have been found, addressed to the king, and inscribed on tablets of baked clay. In spite of the servility of the form of address,
these documents prove that the Assyrians, properly so called

the priWe. give

vileged population of the empire

in addressing their kings,

assumed
still

a certain amount of liberty

truth plainly.
in the British

and

telling

them the

as an example a translation of a

unpublished tablet *

Museum,

in

which

is

denounced some peculation on the part of the

:

controller of the palace and of the minister of state, dated apparently

in the reign of

Asshurbanipal

"Salutation to the king,

my

lord,

from his humble petitioner, Zikar

Nebo.

"To the king, my lord. May Asshur, Shamash, Bel, Zarpanit, Nebo, Ta.shmit, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, the great gods, protectors of royalty, give a hundred years of life to the king, my lord,
and slaves and wives
in great

number

to the king,

my

lord.

"The

gold that in the month Tashrit the minister of state and the

controller of the palace should have given

me

three talents of pure

of the king
(to the

gold and four talents of alloyed gold, to

make an image

and of the mother of the king

has yet not been given

army, and do
it

" May my
to the

lord, the king, give orders to the minister of state

it

the controller of the palace, to give the gold, to give

workmen). and to from this time

month of

to the

exactly."

W^e have also some petitions, addressed to superior officers of the humble in style than those to the king himself An unpublished ta1>!et in the British Museum contains one from a woman
court, hardly less

whose name seems

to be Israelitish.

It

begins thus:

"To my lord the May Bilit of Telit

controller of the palace, his

humble

slave, .Sarah.

and

Bilit

of Babylon, Nebo, Tashmit, Ishtar

for

of

Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, look favourably on him may happiness and worldly prosperity be the portion of
*

many
lord."

days,

my

Marked K,

538.

422
5.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

An
institution peculiar to the Assyrian empire,

and unknown

in

Chalil;va,

was

that of

epouyms

an office precisely analogous

Each year

to that of

the consuls under the

Roman

emperors.

the king nominated

a magistrate,

who had no

other duty than to give his

year

in

the chronological records.

from the number of the superior of the crown had a right to this honour in regular rotation during the early years of a reign. Tlie king reserved to himself the first eponymy,
at the first

name to the The eponym was always selected officers of state. The highest officers

commencement of

new

year after his accession.

The

fol-

lowing year the commander-in-chief of the army was eponym; next the chief eunuch; after him the minister of stale, and lastly the "governor
of .the country ": this order of rotation evidently gives us the order of precedence among the superior officers of the Assyrian court. Wlicn

once

was exhausted, the king made his class. Such at any rate was the state of things in the first Assyrian empire. Under the second there was not perhaps so much regularity; the king chose the first year one from among the officers entitled to hold the eponomy, without even
this series of

eponyms by

right

choice

among

the governors of the

first

invariably reserving his

own

year.

The

institution

of eponyms, adopted by some countries, like the

in

kingdom of Saba,
must have been,

Yemen,

in imitation of the Ninevite

monarchy,
last

like the consulship

under the

Roman

emperors, a

traditional vestige of a time

when

the tribes of Assyria had a republican

government, with magistrates elected annually. 6. We have no sufficient data for reconstructing the complete organisation and hierarchy of the sacerdotal and judicial professions. In the
military operations in person
in Assyrian Tartan,

anny the king was the supreme commander, and frequently directed but there was also a generalissimo, called
;

who seems

to

have been a

sort of minister of war.

was composed of two elements the native Assyrian troops, who formed a nucleus of faithful and reliable soldiery, and the contingents of the vassal principalities. The Assyrians were an essentially military race, and also the dominant people of the empire, and appear to have been all, without exception, liable to military service for a certain number of years; but, unless they entered some permanent corps, such as the royal guard, they do not seem to have been retained under arms for any length of time. Each year a new call was made on a number of men, greater or less, according to circumstances and the wants of the empire, and distributed over the different provinces in
aiTTiy

The

such a

way as

not to put a stop to agricultural operations.

The numbers

only of the contingents furnished by the vassal kingdoms were fixed by the central government and the king of each country was re;

quired to march them in by a certain date, getting the

men where he
officers

would or could.

Each of these contingents was commanded by

MILITARY OPERATIONS.
of
its

423

each corps of

In war time the king usually gave the command of army to one of the great officers of his court and military exploits were, among a warlil<e people, and under princes almost always occupied in conquests, the readiest means of rising in political rank, and attaining to positions about the person of the king.

own

nation.
his

Military art had, moreover,

made
still

great progress

especially in the engineering branch.

cations,

among the Assyrians, What we know of their fortifiamount of

science, great skill

both from the ruins

remaining of them and from the

in arranging

sculptures in the palaces, shows a large

in placing the flanking towers

and

works

to

command

on fortiand the construction of war machines with great success. In the bas-reliefs representing sieges of fortresses by Assyrian kings, we see them using the battering-ram, protected by a " tortoise " on rollers, and covered with hides kept constantly wet, as a protection against incendiaiy arrows; large moving wooden towers are also employed, filled with archers and slingers, and elevated above the crest of the enemy's rampart; the tortoises and towers are moved up an inclined plane, so as to get to the foot of the walls of the town; miners, in galleries, are sapping the ramparts, while others pull down the masonry of the counterscarp of the ditch, so as to fill it up with rubbish skilful archers, each protected by a soldier holding a sort of mantelet, or large shield of wicker-work covered with leather, and as tall as a man, advance to the edge of the ditch, and aim at the loopholes to drive away
various positions.
fications

They had

also carried out the art of attack

the defenders, or shoot fire-tipped arrows over the walls to set the houses
;

fire to

them and prepare to make the assault under cover ol the archers and moving towers. 7. In Assyria there were no castes, nor even rigorously defined classes, no hereditary or established aristocracy. There was complete social equality, such equality as despotism desires and establishes as most
finally,

the infantry

fit

together jointed ladders, raise

up

against the walls,

favourable to

its

own

existence

an

equality with
all,

common

level

where there is no superiority but that of offices established by the will, often by the caprice, In this empire there was not even an invariable of an absolute master. and well-defined distinction between the Assyrians and the conquered nations. Men of these nations were often appointed by the royal will to the most eminent offices; and those high positions at court, that gave a potential voice in the affairs of the empire, were not always filled by Assyrians. In this way we find, in later times, the prophet Daniel, at Babylon, one of the ministers of Nebuchadnezzar, after having received the Babylonish name of Belteshazzar; and the three young Israelites, Hananaiah, Misael, and Azariah, after a similar change of name, were made superintendents of the buildings of the royal city.

created by the yoke that bears equally on

424

ANCIKNT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

organisation of the

Iriiilc clianccry naturally conduced to tliis by attracting to the central seat of government, by the promise of ]iosts of some importance in the administration, natives of subject countries, who thus found an opportunity of displaying tlieir talents on

The

result,

a conspicuous stage.
8.

The

classical writers

do not give us such

detailed ]iarticulars on

the subject of the Assyrian laws as they have done with regard to those

of Egypt.

In criminal cases

we know
tlie

only that the procedure was

punishments excessively severe summary, wring a confession from the accused, and the torture was applied to punishment of dealii was almost always inflicted with refinements in Simple decapitation was a cruelty unknown, for example, in Egypt.
penalty unusually mild; in some cases the victims were crucified, in

the law draconian, and

others

impaled,

in

others

flayed

alive.

Corpses of criminals were

denied burial, and exposed to be devoured by wild beasts.

less

Eor crimes

heinous than those deserving death, mutilation of one or more

loss of the eyes,

members, or

was a common punishment.

their civil laws,

We
The

know

rather

more of

as

many

contracts have
;

been found
oldest

for the sale or hire of

landed property and slaves

these

contracts are stamped on tablets of clay,

and baked

to preserve them.

of these

date from the

earliest
;

times of the primitive

Chaldaean empire, in the reign of Sin Said

the most recent are of the

Greek period, and the names of kings, Seleucus Philopator, Antiochus may be read on them. Some have been found relating to all periods during the whole of the long We learn from them duration of the Chaldseo-Assyrian civilisation. wi,th how many civil and religious guarantees the possession of landed property was surrounded in Assyria. It could not be transferred except by solemn and sacred formula, as well as Ijy a deed registered by a public oiTlcer, and bearing the signature of a certain number of witnesses.
Epiphanes, and Demetrius Nicator,

Wiien

it

was necessary

to deposit a

sum

of

money

as security for the

performance of the contract, the deposit was made in the treasury of a A temple, and the priests were present at the execution of the deed.
carefully-prepared register, in which every change
as a state record of the titles to estates,

imposition of taxes.
'^

was entered, served and also as a basis for the Irrigating canals, veiy numerous throughout the
its

countiy, and the principal source of a great

agricultural prosperity, entailed

number of
;

reciprocal duties

and obligations among the landrise to

holders

and infringements of these arrangements gave

all

the

majority of civil actions brought before the tribunals of Assyria.

As amongst

ancient nations, not only the goods but the person

He who of the debtor were answerable for the debt to the creditor. declared insolvent became the slave of his creditor, who could was
either sell him, or use his services;

and

this slavery

was perpetual,

for

CIVIL LAWS.
among
the Assyrians there was no law, as

425
the Hebrews, limiting

among

to any given

number

of years the slavery of one

who

fell

into the

power of a pitiless creditor. A portion, therefore, of the slaves in Assyria was composed of native Assyrians, reduced to that condition by the inability to pay their debts. The remainder were foreign prisoners captured in war, and sold by auction, or else brought from a distance by the slave merchants who flocked to Nineveh and the
large cities.

The people

of the Caucasus, at that remote epoch, as

now, were

in the habit of selling their sons

and daughters, who were

specially educated for the purpose.

The

sale of slaves in Assyria

was

surrounded with the same

formalities as the sale of landed property; a

formal deed was required and the presence of witnesses.

One

of these

deeds has been translated and published by M. Oppert. 9. Polygamy was allowed in all ranks of society, but the wealthy
alone could afford to indulge in the practice.
as an institution of the state,

tions found in the interior

The royal harem ranked and was enormously large. The inscripof the harem of .Sargon, in the palace of

Khorsabad, relating to the dedication of that building, contain the most extraordinary details, details so strange that it would be imposMarriages were placed under the special sible to introduce them here. The wife brought to her husband some protection of the god Nisroch. real estate, given her as dowry by her father. The celebrated Babylonian stone in the Imperial Library at Paris, known by the name of Cailloux Michaux, contains a deed of gift of one of these dowry estates, and the proprietorship is placed under the protection of the most terrible imprecations against all who should
attempt to interfere with
it.

A
in

tablet in the British

Museum

contains a fragment of the

civil

law,

a double text, Turaiiian-Chaldaaan and

Semitic-Assyrian, on the

and reciprocal duties of husbands and wives, and children. From this we find that the Assyrian family was constituted on the basis of the most absolute and uncontrolled power of No protection whatever is given to the the husband and the father. weaker sex. The husband who wished to repudiate his wife, was obliged only to give her two mince of silver the wife who deceived her husband, or who wished to separate from liim, was to be thrown The master was not compelled to do anything for a into the river. wounded or sick slave but the steward through whose fault a slave died, or became temporarily unfit for work, had to pay compensation for the damage he had done to his master's property.
subject of the rights
fathers
;

426

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Section

II.

Manners and Customs.

very happily termed " the

1.

The

Assyrians,

who have been

them

Romans
Their

of Ancient Asia," were a people essentially fierce and warlike.

own monuments

exhibit

to us as .short in stature, but thickset

;

and strong, with every appearance of great muscular power the nose prominent and curved, the eyes large, and the face of the most marked
Semitic type.
In character, they
.

may be
;

regarded, both in their virtues and vices,

as the complete type of the conquering races of Asia.

Brave
;

in battle,

but cruel to the

attached

last

degree

fond of slaughter and plunder

;

pi-ofoundly

and implicitly obedient to their kings haughty, and believing themselves immeasurably superior to all other people patient under privations, inclined to falsehood and treachery, eminently endowed with the instincts of command, active and persevering they formed one of the nations that Providence seems to raise up for the purpose of holding for a time other nations in subjection, and of serving
;
;

as the instruments for inflicting divine chastisement.

The

strength

and energy of
resist the

their nature

were such that they were

for ages

enabled to

enervating influence of the luxury, that, after so

cities,

many

con-

pervaded their accumulated and such

quests,
;

where

all

the wealth of the world

was

that, after the disaster of

Sardanapalus, a half

recover from its effects, and again, more on the road to conquest. No other Asiatic people has ever been able so long to preserve military supremacy, and

century sufficed

them

to

terrible than ever, to enter

for so

many

centuries to escape the enervating influences of

its

own

success,

meeting with such persistent resistance from the nations it conquered, and surrounded by such powerful neighbours. The Assyrians were naturally a highly religious people, and the
worship of their gods held an important place in their daily life. Without being such absolute devotees as the Egyptians, everything

among them, which, if it had been conjoined with any other religion than their degrading polytheism, would have proved the source of exalted virtues. They were, moreover, an intelligent as well as a warlike race, and exhibited an aptitude for varied occupations, and a superiority in widely diff"erent
proves that a feeling of piety existed
pursuits.
2.

The

soil

of Assyria was and

still

is

extremely

fertile

wherever

it

can be well watered.

neighbours, the

The Assyrians learned agriculture from their Babylonians, who were originally their masters; and

INDUSTRIAL ARTS.
this art

427

had been

carried to the highest degree of perfection from the

earliest times in

the whole of Mesopotamia, as well in

all

Assyria as in
full

Chaldsea.

They had

the best methods of cultivation in

use,

founded both on the customs of remote ages, and on an ingenious and well-considered theory. No other ancient people made such advances in the art of agriculture and on many points modern nations have, as it were, reinvented, but not improved on, the practice of the Babylonians and Ninevites. A system of irrigation extended over the whole
;

seldom or never rains there; and was carried to the highest point of perfection. It was first applied to the low and easily- watered plains of Chaldaea, but was afterwards extended to the whole of Assyria, where great difficulties had to be encountered in carrying it out, requiring much science, and a large amount of labour. All the rivers of the country contributed to it and it may be said that the Assyrians did not allow one drop of that precious element to be lost the main secret in all oriental countries of the fertility of the
country,

absolutely necessary,

since

it

this

was the foundation of

their system of agriculture,

soil.
3.

The

industrial arts

were not

less well

developed in Assyria, than

was

agriculture.

Here

again, at any rate in

some manufactures, the

brilliant

Assyrians had been preceded by the Babylonians and had learned from

them.

The Assyrian woven

stuffs,

dyed

in

colours,

were

celebrated through the whole of the ancient world, especially for the
beautiful embroideries of

human
all

or symbolical figures, processions of

animals, divine symbols or flowers w'hich covered them.

In the Assyrian sculptures

the important personages, the king,

and the gods above all, have their garments .decorated with these famous embroideries and we may from this form an opinion of their beauty. These embroideries, distributed by commerce, served as models for decoration of the most ancient Grecian painted vases. Metal work was carried to great perfection in Assyria. Furniture covered or cased with bronze was a conspicuous object in every palace. There is in the British Museum a very beautiful throne of bronze, found in the palace at Calah, in a hall where the bas-reliefs represent king Asshur-nazir-pal on a similar seat. In the decoration of halls, long friezes of sheets of bronze were used, worked in relief, and representing figures of animals or fantastic monsters the projecting beams of the ceilings were also cased with sheets of bronze of the same kind. Vases of bronze were made in great numbers, as well as of gold and of silver, carefully chased and covered with figures these specimens of Assyrian goldsmith's work were carried to great distances by commerce. A passage in the letters of Themistocles shows us that they were in great request at Athens, at the period of the Median wars, and they have even been found in Etruscan tombs.
; ;
;

42S

ANCIENT IllsroUV OF THE EAST.

Assyrians liad tdols of iron and
iliemselves.
slcc-l,

The
t]ieni

hnl Ihcy

do not seem

to

have manufactured tluin fm

manufacture of
steel,

They undoubtedly obtained

tlie Caucasus, where the by the Chalybes, had been known from the most And these were not the only manufactures in common primitive ages. use among them that were obtained by foreign commerce. Textile fabrics, dyed purple or blue, came to them from Phaonicia, as well as some of their glass transparent muslin from Egypt. All the carved ivory that has been found at present in the ruins of Assyrian palaces, where it was largely employed in the decoration of furniture, seems to be of Phtenician work. Assyria, however, exported to the countries with which she had commercial relations, manufactured produce to the
;

from the neii^libourinij provinces of

full

value of her imports.

If articles evidently of Egyptian manufac-

ture have

been found

at

Nineveh, the sepulchres on the l)anks of the

Nile have equally furnished their explorers with works of Assyrian

manufacture, especially small articles of precious wood, and of enamelled
jiottery.

The Assyrian enamelled

process from that of Egypt

pottery,

produced by a totally different

of a silico-alkaline glaze apjtlied

by means

to ordinary clay, instead of to a

sandy paste and susceptible of being applied to a variety of uses, was in fact one of the most flourishing and best developed manufactures of Mesopotamia, and in the time ot
the eighteenth dynasty,
articles

part of the tribute to Pharaoh

was paid

in

of this kind.

The manufacture had been

the end

invented by the

Babylonians, but in
Chaldrea.

became

as

prevalent in Assyria, as in

The

walls were encased with enamelled bricks, arranged so

;

as to produce pictures

scenes of

war or the

chase, figures of deities,

processions of animals,

were among the chief means of decoration

decorations in the palace at Babylon, and

employed

in

Chaldceo-Assyrian architecture.

Ctesias describes these

their remains

have been found in the ruins of such Assyrian buildings have been excavated, particidnrly at Khorsabad. The practice as has been handed down traditionally from antiquity in this part of Asia, for enamelled tiles are at the present time the principal ornament of the palaces and mosques of Persia, and during the middle
ages
the

productions

of

Ispahan

in

this

art

were

marvellously

beautiful.

The
glass

Assyrians also manufactured painted earthenware vessels and

;

ware

there

is in

the British

Museum

a beautiful vase of the latter

material, bearing the

4.

name

of Sargon in cuneiform characters.

The costume

of the Assyrians consisted of a robe open at the side,

with a border of fringe and decorated with rich embroidery, hanging down to the feet, and confined in the middle by a broad girdle,
often

COSTUME OF ASSYRIANS.
The common people and
the knees, so as to allow

429

precisely resembling the djubeh of the eastern people in the present day.
soldiers used a shorter tunic, reaching only to

them
all

to

walk

freely.

The

king, in his robes

of ceremony, wore over

a sort of long mantle or chasuble,

;

worn ob-

ornamented and this is also seen on the monuments on the hgures of the gods; a high conical tiara surmounted his head, and in his hand he held a long sceptre or staff, nearly the height of a man. The insignia of his rank, when he appeared in public, were tlie same as those of Asiatic monarchs in the present day, the parasol and large feathered fly flaps carried behind him by slaves. The Assyrians wore their hair long and curled at the end, the beard They were fond of wearing great square, and with rows of curls. quantities of jewelry, large earrings, rings, and bracelets. Some of the
liquely over one shoulder and splendidly

wore a cuirass of small pieces of metal protecting the body, and allowing the tunic to appear beneath it these were probably light infantry. Others wore long coats of mail reaching to the feet, with a conical helmet to which was attached a sort of veil of chain mail, falling down on the neck and brought round to protect the chin, such as are now worn by the Circassians. We can say nothing as to the costume of the Assyrian women, as we are almost entirely ignorant on the subject; the classical writers give us no information, and women are not represented in the sculptures of the palace, except among vanquished and captive people. This absence of the representations of women in the works of Assyrian art was a natural and almost inevitable consequence of the custom of shutting up women We know of only one exception. A in the interior of the harem. small bas-relief from the interior apartments of Asshurbanipal at Koyundjik, representing the king feasting in the harem garden ; and in this case the queen wears a long-sleeved gown reaching to the feet; over it a fringed tunic or frock reaching below the knees ; and over her shoulders a light cape or cloak, all richly decorated ; on her head is a remarkable turreted diadem, very like that represented by the Greeks in the figures of their goddess Cybele, with earrings and bracelets of elaborate workmanship. 5. Among the customs still existing in Asiatic courts, and of which the earliest examples are found in Assyria, must not be forgotten the great hunting expeditions, where the Ninevite monarchs delighted to drive numbers of wild beasts together and pierce them with their arrows. In the immense plains of Assyria, however highly cultivated the land in general was, there were vast waste places, almost boundless steppes, where, as irrigation was impossible, there was no cultivation, and consequently no inhabitants. There lions, wild asses, wild bulls, and
soldiers
;

430

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Xciioplion, wlio
us this, and the
prisscil tluoiiL;li

ostriches increascil ami nuilliplicil.

the

country with

tiie

Ten Tiiousand,

lolls

monuments add

their

testimony to

liis.

These animals the

all
still

king went out to hunt in very

magnificent style, surrounded with

as the Shahs of Persia

the

pomp

of a military expedition,

do, and as the descendants of the great

Mogul did

in the last

century in India.

Travellers

who have been

killed

present at these gigantic chases, as were Tavcrner and Chardin, for

instance, report

them

as regular butcheries,
is

where animals are

by

hundreds, but where the king

not exposed to any danger.

large

body of troops, spread as beaters over the plain, ilrive, by their shouts and all the noise they can possibly make, animals, both savage and inoffensive, into an enclosure prepared beforehand, and where they are crowded in enormous numbers. There the prince, safe in ambush and protected by strong palisades from the efforts of the lions and tigers, selected at leisure the animals he wished to kill, without being in any danger from them. It is probable that mailers were arranged in this way in Assyria. But the flattery of the artists who drew the hunting scenes with which the monarchs were so fond of decorating the walls of their palaces, has represented the kings in a much more heroic position. They are traversing forests and plains in the chariots, with lions roaming all around them, and they fight face to face with the most formidable
animals, exposing themselves to innumerable risks from monstrous beasts,

this is noble, grand,

and giving proofs of their courage as well as of their dexterity. All and poetical but there is great reason to doubt that
;

these scenes represent facts.

reliefs

of the comedy is revealed by several basThis king was one of those who showed himself most addicted to hunting exploits. In all parts of his palace there are representations of his combats with lions, accompanied by
It is true that the secret

of Asshurbanipal.

inscriptions explanatory of the circumstances.

On

a bas-relief in the

Louvre he says, " In one of my hunts a lion approached me; I seized him by the mane above his ears. Invoking Asshur, and Ishtar the lord of fights, I pierced his body with my lance, the word of my hand." On a bas-relief in the British Museum he says, " In one of my royal excursions I seized a lion by the tail, and, with the aid of Nergal and Adar, beat out his brains with my mace." There is scarcely any reason to doubt that the incident represented by the side of these inscriptions did really occur. But there is one part of some of these bas-reliefs that diminishes the value of these royal exploits. Slaves are shown, allowing the lion with which the king is about to fight to escape from a cage. He did not therefore attack these formidable animals when they were at liberty, but had them brought to his hunting ground, and they were most likely prepared beforehand so as to diminish the king's danger lions whose claws had been cut and their teeth filed, or that


CUNEIFORM WRITING.
had been stupefied by some beverage, so as
tively harmless.

431

to render

them compara-

In all cases when llic khigs of Assyria caused their official annals to be compiled in order to be sculptured on the walls of temples or palaces,
they were as careful to mention the number of lions, wild bulls, and

even wild boars, that they had killed with their own hands, as to enumerate their campaigns and the cities they had taken. This was one

way

of likening themselves to the gods

who had been

is

the destroyers of

monsters.

The most

curious inscription of this kind

I.

that of the obelisk of

Tiglath-pileser

in the British

Museum.

We

quote some passages

strength and have

from it: "Adar and Nergal have increased

given him the glory of bravery.
killed a dolphin in the great sea.

his

Embarked

in the ships of

Aradus, he

He
;

killed wild boars, wild buffaloes,

in the city of Arazik, opposite Syria, at the foot of

Lebanon.

He

took
;

he dispersed a herd of them he killed wild boars with his bow; he took wild boars alive and transported them to the city of Ellasar.
enclosure; with his great courage he

the young of the wild boar alive

He shut up
mounted

120 lions in the hunting

his chariot

and stretched
.
.

them dead

at his feet

with his lance.

He

caught lions in traps.

He

fished in the western sea,

iron.

and

in the

sea of the rising sun, with

harpoons of

In the countries of Ebech, Urashi, Azamari, An-

karna, Pizitu, Kashiyara, the mountains of Assyria and Khana, on the

flanks of the land of Lulumi,

and

in the

mountains where are the

sources of the two rivers (Euphrates and Tigris), he caught wild goals,

chamois, and wild asses."

The king who performed such famous hunting

successor of Nimrod,

feats

of

him whose glory

it

was

to

be

was a worthy "a mighty

hunter before the Lord."

Section
I.

III.

Writing.
origin

We have already said

the

a few words on the cuneiform writing of the

its

Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, and have attributed

to the Shumir,

Chaldaea.

Turanian portion of the primitive population ot The system is perhaps the most complicated ever employed

by man
rests

for depicting his thoughts.

it,

There were enormous

;

difficulties in

deciphering

but this has

now been accomplished

the interpretation

henceforward on a secure and certain basis, and the result must be considered among the most magnificent and important discoveries of this age in the domain of historical science.

43::

ANCIENT HISTORY OF
is

Till' of

EAST.
iIk'

This achicvcnicnt, lidwcvcr,

Es^yplian liicrogIy|>liics, due to
tlic first

not like

llial

inlorprclaliofi of
'I'lie

tlic intellect

of one ninn.

gloi'y

of

decipliei inenl of cuneiform writing

must be shared among many

scholars; and
genius,

instead of being the result of a sudtlen inspiration of

followed from a long series of repeated and patient efforts.

the

I'lven liefore

commencement of

the excavations that revealed to the

soil

light of

day the palaces buried under the

of Assyria

even when

but a very small

number of specimens of

this

strange writing were

known, Grotefend, one of the most ingenious of the men of science of modern Ciermany, had already established some points that have remained undisturbed by subsequent |in)t;ress; by an effort almost of divination he succeeded in reading on some of the Babylonian bricks the name of Nebuchadnezzar. Soon afterwards, the successful researches of M. Botta and Mr. Layard brought to light the palaces of Khorsabad, Nimrud, and Koyundjik, and supplied an immense mass of documents for study. M. de Longperier and M. dc Saulcy, the first to follow them U]i, contributed very important results; and if they did not finally complete the discovery of the method of interpretation, wonderfully smoothed the way for their successors. M. de Saulcy made the greatest advance; he determined the simple values of a large number of signs,
first

detected the syllabic character of the writings, and established the

Semitic character of the language.

these studies so soon, he
first

Doubtless, had he not abandoned would have maintained the advantage he at

obtained over his fellow students.

Champollion found the key to the reading of the Egyptian hieroglyphics in the famous Rosetta stone, containing a part of a decree by the priests of Egypt under the Ptolemies, written in hieroglyphics, in Assistance of this kind was absolutely the Demotic, and in Greek. necessary, m order to arrive at any definite result in the readmg of This was furnished by the inscription at the cuneiform inscriptions. Behistun, that lengthy text, in which Darius Hystaspes has related the events of his whole life, engraved on a rock in Media, in the language and writing of the Persians, of the Medes, and of the Assyrians. From

commencement of the present century the cuneiform inscription in was read with tolerable certainty, and the portion of the Behistun monument engraved in that language gave the same assistance towards the analysis and decipherment of the Median and
the the Persian language

Assyrian inscription, as the Greek version in the Rosetta inscription.

So from the date of the publication of the Behistun inscription by Sir H. Rawlinson, who had surmounted immense difficulties to make the copy,
the study of cuneiform writing entered on a

new phase

of development,

and advanced with great rapidity. Three scholars of the highest attainments. General Sir H. Rawlinson


CUNEIFORM WRITING.
in England, the lale Dr. Ilincks in Ireland,

433
in

and M. Jules Oppert

France, pursued the study simultaneously, with noble emulation and

equal success.

In very

many

of the most essential points,

more than once

that they simultaneously

it happened and independently arrived at

and published the same results, so that priority of discovery could be awarded to neither; and as a result, in a few years the science of Assyriology has been established, and the decipherment of the ancient system of writing belonging to Nineveh and Babylon is an accomplished fact. To M. Oppert must be assigned the honour, after these discursive and perhaps confused attempts, of having reduced the discoveries to a
system, of having separated the essential facts, and the laws to be

deduced from them, and

blished the

finally of having, before

any one

else, esta-

grammar

of the writing and language of the Assyrians.

These great and meritorious labours were acknowledged by the Imperial by awarding to him the prize that every tenth year is given for the most important discovery in the branches ot
Institute of France in 1863,

science pursued in each of

2.

its

academies.

name of Anarian to the Ninevite and Babylonian system of cuneiform writing, as opposed to the Arian, or cuneiform writing of the Persians. It was necessary to choose a name
Scholars have given the
equally general and vague, as the writing
it

designates

is

not only that

of the idiom of the Chaldieo- Assyrians, but of at least

five

languages

belonging to very different families

namely

1st. The Assyrian, of the Semitic family, spoken both at Babylon and Nineveh. 2nd. The Armenian, an Arian or Indo-European language, used by the Armenian people from the ninth to the tenth century before our era ; in this are written the numerous cuneiform inscriptions in the neighbourhood of Van. 3rd. The Susianian, or language of all the inscriptions of Susiana and Elam, belonging to the Turanian family. 4th. The Median, a Turanian idiom of the Turkish group, spoken in Media all the official inscriptions of the Achsemenian Persians are composed in Persian, in Median, and in Assyrian. 5th. The Chaldasan, another Turanian idiom, of the Uralo-finnish group, the primitive national language of the Chaldeans before their establishment as the dominant caste in Babylon, where they continued
;

to use
as

it among themselves down to the last days we have already said. There may have been, and probably were, other

of their supremacy,

languages for which

;

the Anarian system of cuneiform writing was used

others have been found on the monuments.
3.

but at present no

The Anarian cuneiform

writing, as science has

now

proved, was

F F

434

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

composed of
iiicluiesof matciial objects,
tliese forms can in

ori^c^inally liieroglyplia-, that is,

and

some

cases be reconstructed.

An
is

inscription
jiositivcly

cntiicly wriltcn

in

tlicse

hieroglyphics exists at Susa, as

is

known

but

il

has not yet been copied, and

therefore unf(.)itunately not

l)y

available for study.

In the course of time,

a very natural ])rocess,

the pictured representation underwent a Iransforniation in common use, in exact accordance with the process by which the Egyptian hieratic

writing was formed from the hieroglyphic, and the present Chinese
characters from the pictures originally used.
contrilnited to replace the picture

The

desire for simplicity

lines which, without
its

by some few
ancient

exactly copying

its

form, might serve to recall at any rate

most

peculiar characteristics.

The most

monumental remains of

Babylonia and Chaldasa are inscribed with this form of writing, previous to its having assumed the cuneiform character, and this is called

by scholars Hieratic. From this was formed the true cuneiform writing, distinguished by the peculiarity of having its letters, whatever may have been their original shape, composed of a combination of marks like a nail, or
wedge,

or

]-

The form

of this constant element in all the

signs of cuneiform writing

was used among the Assyrians

its

as one of the

sacred symbols of divine intelligence, but took

origin from their

The Assyrians and Babylonians did not write with pen and ink or pencil on papyrus, prepared skins, or rolls of linen, nor with a hard point on boards, palm leaves or bark. For want of other available means they wrote on tablets of soft clay, afterwards baked when they wanted to preserve them. Now the special distinguishing element, producing the very singular appearance of cuneiform writing, the nail, is nothing more than the mark made in the clay by the triangular stylus used for the purpose ; many specimens have been found in the ruins of Nineveh. The nail would also be formed by two blows of the chisel, and was a more easy and expeditious method of engraving an inscription on stone, than by
method of writing.
sculpturing the entire figure.

The
;

original Hieroglyphic writing thus

transformed became simplified by degrees; the picture, the prototype of

each character, was forgotten

the

number

of cuneiform

marks com-

posing each character was lessened, so that in the end they became
purely conventional combinations.

Thus from the Hieroglyphic

and from
this the first

picture arose,

first

the Hieratic writing,

This, however, itself

form of the cuneiform writing, termed the Archaic. was very complicated, but became simplified into a


CUNEIFORM WRITING.
fourth type, the most

435

commonly used of all, in which the greater part of the Assyrian inscriptions are written, called by scholars the Modern. Finally even this last, in its daily use, was still more abridged into a

form capable of being written with greater rapidity, called the Cursive
form.

The monumental remains

use.

of the primitive

Chaldean empire have no

writing except in the Archaic form, apparently the only one then in

In the time of the Assyrian kings, however, the period of the greater number of the monuments that have been preserved, that is,

from the tenth to the seventh century B.C., the Cursive type was used for the writings on clay, the manuscripts of Chaldtea and Assyria; and in the monumental inscriptions, either the Archaic or Modem character

was employed,

at the choice of the sculptor

just as,

selves, inscriptions are cut

letters.

sometimes

in Gothic,

sometimes

among ourin Roman,

The Archaic type

cuneiform
In
\\-riting

is

the

same

in

all

countries where the Anarian the other hand, pre-

was

in

use; the

Modern type, on

sents very apparent differences in Nineveh, Babylon,

4.

and Media.

common
Ijy

with

all

hieroglyphic writing, the Anarian cuneiform

commenced

a large

employment of ideographics, of which very

its

many

vestiges remained to the end of

existence.

The

signs for

ideas in this writing, like those of the Egyptian system, were doubtless
originally while
still

hieroglyphics,

some

figurative, others symbolical.

But there are only a very small number of these signs in the cuneiform writing which it has been possible to trace back to the ancient figurative representation, such for

example as

Sun.

Shovel.

Fish.

The

great majority, in the state in which

we

find

them on the monu-

ments, are merely conventional groups, and their meaning can be found

only in an empirical manner.

5.

With

these ideographics are joined and mixed up, as in the Egj'p-

tian hieroglyphics, phonetic elements representing sounds

and composing

the majority of the texts of the Assyrian age, and a minority of those

of the age of the primitive Chaldcean empire.

But these phonetics are

not alphabetic, as
the nations

among

the Egyptians; they are syllabic, for none of

who used

the

philosophical analysis of language sufficient to enable

pose the syllable, and to

Anarian cuneiform writing had attained them to decomdistinguish the mute consonant from the vowel


ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.
it

436
that gave

sound.

The

following table gives the usual syllabarium of

the Anarian cuneiform writing

tliat

is,

the signs in most

common

use

representing simple s\llables, syllables formed of a single consonant and

a single vowel

these form the chief part of every Assyrian inscription.

syllables witli a vowel
liy

The compound
times expressed

between two consonants arc some-

special signs, but

more

thus,

two simple syllables, one with a Mat was written Ma-at, Bir
varieties of

final

Bi-ir,
:

by the juxtaposition of and one with an initial vowel,

often
etc.

The table

is

divided into

three columns, giving the form of the

same character

in the three

most
type

commonly used

the

Modern form
as under

of writing,

the

most common on the monuments

Number

of the character in
Norris's

Dictionary.

CUNEIFORM SYLLABARIUM.
Number
of the character in
Norris's Dictionary.

437

Media.

lo

,(rt

-IM
T>. Y
Ills

II

7<

15

(/a

-IT
di

(in

38

ha

26

ff

ff

76

E^III

T^ Y'
33

-^

kha

34

khi

35

khu

-\v
-{

36

akh

22

ikh

39

ukh

i^"'-

TTE=T

438
Number

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

N orris's
Nineveh.

of the character in
Dictionar}'.

Media.

42

ka

in

43

^'

44

kn
tei^

12

ak

13

ik

Hi
^T
^T

14

ilk

45

46

li

<-<>

\<

^-

fer

48

///

50

a/

51

//

53

^il

54

ma

Ll

56

//

c:

55

''"?

F
-4<

57

mu

CUNEIFORM SYLLABARIUM.
Number
of the character in
Norris's Dictionary.

439

Nineveh.

Media.

58

atn

59

^^\
II

^II!

60

61

--<^i

62

lie

63

65

ail

I
ff

66 68

in

69

sa
>

T TTT

-T-^m^

70

si

JI
S

91

su

JI

as

TT
31
IS

440
Number
of thi; character in

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

N orris's
Niiicvcli

Media.

Dictionary.

32

us

::-M
tt

::-ni
tt
l!=

73

pa
pi

74

^i-

75

pu
ap
:I

ip

til

Mil

up

78

qa

^
isn
Bif
-Til

79

qi

80

qn

81

ra

82

ri

-III^

83

til
ar

-III

85

86

-WT-

-TTT

87

er

HI

CUNEIFORM SYLLABARIUM.
Number
of the character in

441

Norns's
Dictionary.

Nineveh.

Media.

88

!VT

IM
:J

89

-M
TT
ska

90

93

shi

^Tshu

95

92

she

96

shu

k
97
ash

I
ish

99

00

itsh

>-5p-

lOI

ta

:i -w-<

10^

-i^
la

104

<<>

at

19

//

20

lit

^i


442

ANCIENT
willi

TTT^^TORY

OF TTTE EAST.

barium

readers will naturally wish to compare this Syllathat given in the excellent dictionary jjy Mr. Norris (Assyrian Dictionary, by Edwin Norris, Ph. D., Honorary Secretary of the J^oyal Asiatic Society, London, 1868) ; and as some differences will lie founil, the author desires to offer a few remarks on the suljject. The greater number of these differences are merely variations in the form of the character, such as are found on very many of the monuments themselves. Only two founts of movable Assyrian type have as
yet been cast in Europe, one used by the Royal Asiatic Society, the other in the Imprimerie Imperiale at Paris. In the first, the form of the characters is copied from the Behistun inscrijjtion in the second from the inscriptions at Khorsabad. The author has preferred to use the second, even in this English edition of his work, as he considers the model on which the characters have been formed as better and, if such a term may be used in speaking of Assyria, more classical. Moreover, particularly desiring to show the fundamental identity of the Median system of writing with the Assyrian, he has selected among the varieties of the latter those forms which most clearly show that identity, as, for instance, in the characters ak and //, numbered 12 and 51, in Mr. Norris's list.
;

NoTK. English

to introduce an Assyrian Grammar, was not considered desirable to make the syllabarium too extensive, the author has omitted some simple syllabic characters which are rarely used, or seem to be interchangeable with others. Thus the characters numbered in Mr. Norris's list 27,28, zi 29, Z2i; 47, le

As no attempt has been made

it

and

105, /. 49 seems to the author a simple variant of 48, and 94 also of 93, found only on doubtful copies.
52,
t'/;

6-j,cii;

84,7'//; <ji,s/ia; ()^,ask;

102,

/t

and

The author has not introduced any diphthongs, and has therefore omitted No. 25, regarding it not as a simple ;/ but as an. The character 4i.jl'fl, seems also to him a combination of /, (40) and a, (i).
These variations, as will be seen, involve no differences in reading, and require no explanation ta an experienced Assyriologist. The only real points of disagreement between the author and Mr. Norris, very few in number, are as follows In No. 36, but the value, akh, still seems doubtful. In No. 64, read by the author as ni/7n, or itiiv, not nic. No. 106 seems identical with 8, and to have the two sounds, up and
:

(7r,

but not

//.

These points are of course merely mentioned and cannot be discussed

here.

be remarked, that syllables in which the consonant is list by z, include both of the Semitic articulations That in syllables in which the Jti occurs, that letter may be T and V. replaced by v. That in the characters representing syllables with an initial consonant and final vowel, one single character is used for all the articulations of the same class thus, ap and a!> are expressed by the same sign, as well as ak, ag, aq and at, ad and ath, etc.
It

may

also

represented in our

6.

With but very few

exceptions, the ideographic and phonetic values

is

of the written signs are the same, whether the language employed
Assyrian, Armenian, Susianian, or Median.

But most frequently the

IDEOGRAPHIC CHARACTERS.
as ideograpliics or phonetics
;

443

characters are capable, according to their position, of being used eitlier

and

in all the languages

employing

this

system of writing, except the Turanian Chaldasan, the sound of the sign

when used phonetically had no resemblance to the pronunciation of the word it represented ideographically. For example, in an Assyrian text,
the character

~-J

conveys,

as

an ideograjDh,
it

the idea of

"God,"

and was then pronounced "

Ilu "; as a phonetic

also,

represents the syllable

"an."
and
is

The

character

^^UlT
it

ideographically

means

father,

read "abu," but

also stands for the syllable

is

"

at."

The

explanation of this peculiarity

the foreign origin of this system

We have already said that science has proved that the Anarian system of cuneiform writing was invented and introduced into Mesopotamia by a people of Turanian or Ugro-finnish race, the Shumir, who were the first inhabitants of a part of Chaldaea. Among these people the phonetic and ideographic values of the signs were identical; the one sprung from the other; the pronunciation of each character as a phonetic was the initial syllable of the word represented by the sign as
of writing.

an ideograph

>->T

represented

an,

because the word

for

God

was An;w/;

^ ^
When

the

syllable af, because the

word
its

for father

was Alta.
and

the system of writing passed from

Turanian

inventors to other nations, Chaldceo-Assyrians, Armenians, Susianians,

others, they

borrowed both the sound and the meaning

and as

in

the languages of the latter people the ideas were expressed by entirely
different words, the concord
7.

between sound and meaning was at an end. But the complications of the Anarian cuneiform writing did not

end here.
finding the

To

these difficulties, already sufficiently embarrassing, ot

directly

same character with two

opposed meanings,

at

one

time phonetic and at another ideographic, and with no apparent connection between the double employment, must be added the peculiarity
of polypJiony

fruitful

source of difficulty.

It consists in

the existence

of two or three different phonetic values for the same character.

T

Thus,

meaning

as an ideographic to anoint, corresponding with the

Assyrian word nasak, represents as a phonetic sometimes the simple

syllable /,

and

at others the

compound

syllable khat.

This

fact is so

announcement was received with incredulity in the has been established by such positive proofs, that it is now admitted as incontrovertible; an analogous fact has also been noticed in some Egyptian hieroglyphics. This has arisen from the fact that the ideographic characters, like the words of the spoken language.
strange, that
its first

scientific world,

but

it


444

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

sometimes received now tliough cognate meanings, one meaning, for instance concrete, another abstract one meaning as a siil)stantive, anotlier as a verb now these varied meanings frequently corresponded
;

in the

spoken language

to

words of

totally different sound,

and thence

arose the various phonetic values.

we have said enough show how complicated, how full of obscurities, how liable to error in the reading, was this system of Anarian cuneiform writing used in Assyria and Babylonia from a period more than thirty centuries before
must not dwell longer on
this subject,

We

but

to

Of course, the Assyrians our era down to the time of the Seleucidas. were better able than we are to disentangle this almost inextricable
confusion; but even for them the difficulties were great.

We

find a

proof of

this in the

number of fragments of

lists

of syllables and of

.grammatical vocabularies stamped on clay tablets, intended to teach the pupils of the Hiero-grammatists of Asshurbanipal the mysteries of the
national system of writing that have been found in such abundance in

the ruins of Nineveh.

large proportion of the remains of Anarian

assist

cuneiform writing are composed of school books, which

us to

decipher the remainder, and afford us the same assistance that they
did 2,500 years ago to the students of the ancient land of Asshur. But though the remains of these lists of syllables, drawn up by the Assyrians

themselves for their

thev prove that

own

assistance in reading their

own

writing, afford

valuable help to modern students in deciphering the cuneiform system,

it

has always been complicated and obscure, and that to

it,

understand and employ

was, were compelled to

extensive use, the very people,

at the time when it was in common and whose exclusive and national writing it have recourse to help of the same kind.

even

Section IV.
I.

Literature and Science.

Berosus

tells

us that the Babylonians and Assyrians had eight

sacred books, and that they attributed the authorship of them to the god

Oannes, the mythical founder of the first civilisation of Lower Chaldaea. From these books he drew the information he has given us on the

cosmogony believed
religion preserved

in

Babylon

from

the

indirectly, are derived the very correct ideas

same source also, but on the Chaldseo- Assyrian

by the Greek philosopher, Damascius. books of Oannes has been preserved, nor any portion of the chronicles relating the whole history of Nineveh and Babylon. But from their extraordinary length, some of the in-

No

original fragment of the

scriptions of the Assyrian kings

may

almost be termed books, as they


ASSYRIAN LITERATURE.
relate in detail the annals of their reigns, giving us
historical

445
an idea of the
translated, as

and

literary style of the Assyrians.

Even when

the reader

may have

observed from the fragments

these documents have a forcible and stately

striking,

we have character. The

quoted,
style
is

magniloquent, the diction strong and vigorous, the metaphors bold and
the turn of thought poetic,
to
gratify

a sort of epic air distinguishes

of the

the story told

the

pride

monarchs of the Great

of

Empire.
2.

All the remains

known

to us

of books, properly so called,

ancient Assyria, were found during Mr. I.ayard's excavations, and

come
flat

from the library estaljlished by King Asshurbanipal

of his palace at Nineveh.

in

one of the halls

curious library, consisting entirely of

square tablets of baked clay, having on each side a page of very small and closely written cuneiform cursive letters, impressed on the clay

while

still

moist

each was numbered, and formed a page of a book

tablets,

composed of a number of such

in the library.

probably piled one on another

preserved of the library of

The

great majority of the tablets

still

the remains of an immense grammatical encyclopcedia, treating of the difficulties of the writing as well as of the language. We find from them that
in the British

Asshurbanipal, and

now

Museum, contain

grammar had become among the Assyrians a very advanced science, and received much attention from them, the natural and almost inevitable
long and profound study.

consequence of the complication of their system of writing, requiring We find also from a notice appended to one
of the treatises of the Grammatical Encyclopaedia, that the library of the
its

Ninevite palace was intended by

founder to be a public library

whom

"Palace of Asshurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria, to the god Nebo and the goddess Tashmit (the goddess of wisdom) have given ears to hear, and eyes to see what is the foundation of

government.

They have
I

revealed to the kings,

my

predecessors, this

cuneiform writing, the manifestation of the god Nebo, the god

of

supreme intelligence. I have placed it it,

jects."

have written

it

upon
the

tablets,

have signed
of

in

my

palace

for

instruction

my

sub-

The Grammatical
seven
1st.
:

Encycloprcdia, compiled by the orders of Asshurinto

banipal, was divided

several

treatises;

we have fragments

of

lexicon of the Chaldseo-Turanian language, with the

of the words in Assyrian.

religion

and

science,

This was used to interpret compiled by Chaldaean priests in their own lan-

meaning some treatises on

guage, to render them unintelligible to the

of the empire was in the Chaldccan tongue.

common

people.

We
civil

already mentioned that the original text of the fundamental

have laws

446
2iul.

ANXIENT HISTORY OF TUK

A
dictionary of

1':AST,

3rd.

A
A

grammar

of the

synonyms in llic Assyrian lanj^uaijc. same tongue, with paradigms of the conjuga-

tions of verbs.
4th.

dictionary of the signs of the Anarian cuneiform writing, with

their ideograjihic meanings

5th.

and phonetic values. Another dictionary of the same signs, arranged according primitive hieroglyphics whence they are derived.
6th.

to the

A
in

lexicon of particular expressions, generally ideographic, the inscriptions of the primitive Chaldcean empire.

emThis

ployed
e.xhibits

a turn for archaeology, and shows us that the Ninevite and

for the

Babylonian kings of later times must have made a careful search in the
temples they repaired

inscriptions of their original builders.

Thus we have on a

cylinder of Nabonahid,

now

in the British

Museum,

the translation of an inscription of Shagaraktiash, discovered in the

foundations of the great temple at .Sipparah.

7th. Tables of expressions illustrative of grammatical construction, and of the various methods of expression in ideographs and phonetics. A.11 these treatises, the fragments of which are of inestimable value to us, are not remarkable for the excellence of their method. 3. Nor do the riches of the library of the Ninevite palace end here. The fragments of the grammatical treatises, published many years ago by the authorities of the British Museum, have acquired the greatest celebrity, and have been chiefly used by scholars, as they furnish most invaluable assistance in deciphering cuneiform inscriptions. But the clay tablets discovered by Mr. Layard also contain parts of very many other

books.

Fragments have been found,

This subject
is

as

we have

said, relative to the laws.

also represented

by a number of contracts between

private individuals that

to serve as "formul3e juris privati,"

of records of judicial
the eponyms,

would hardly be found there unless intended and portions, still more numerous, proceedings, for the library was used also as a

The remains of the table of embracing almost without interval a space of nearly three centuries, prove that there were also books on chronology. These are of four sepai^ate kinds, the two first containing only the list of the personages who gave their names to the years, divided by reigns; the two others, infinitely more valuable, and from which we have made many quotations, where this list was accompanied by a summary of the One broken tablet is all that remains of principal events of each year. a manual of the history of Nineveh and Babylon, arranged in parallel columns it was especially an abstract of the political and diplomatic From this fragment we have quoted our relations at different epochs. statements as to the most ancient Ninevite kings, and their relations with the Babylonian kings.
depositary for the archives of the palace.
;

LIBRARY AT NINEVEH.

447

Fragments have also been found on mythology, not yet translated, though some of them have been published in the "British Museum
Inscriptions." They contain lists of the various epithets applied to the same god, and of his functions and attributes tables of the localities in which were his principal temples; and, finally, highly important documents as to foreign gods. With them were found also the remains
;

of collections of hymns, in a style sometimes recalling the Psalms of find next the remains of a sort of encycloptedia, or David.

We

geographical dictionary, enumerating the countries, towns, mountains, and rivers known to the Assyrians also of a list of proper names in
;

use in the country; and,

interest

documents of the greatest on the hierarchy of the functionaries of the government, and on the different provinces of the monarchy, their productions and revenues.
lastly, statistical

Several tablets contain remains of the lists of the tributary cities of Osrhoene, Taurus, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Eg)'pt, with statements

larly in grain.

of the sums they paid, or the supplies they furnished in kind, particuhave also a catalogue of the important buildings of

We

Babylonia and Chaldsea, classified according to their kind, temples, pyramids, and fortified citadels. 4. Natural history also is represented in the remains of the library of Lists of known plants and minerals have been the Ninevite palace.
found; of the timber trees employed in building or furnishing; of But perhaps the metals of stones fit for architecture or sculpture.
;

most

interesting of all
classified

is

list

of every species of animal

known

to the

Assyrians,

in

families

divisions of this classification

doubt the gi-eat are those of a very rudimentary science,

similar
in

and genera.

No

but

we may

well be astonished to find that the Assyrians had already

scientific

invented a
Linnaeus.
scientific

nomenclature

principle

to
is

that

of a

Opposite the

common name

of the

animal

placed
sign,

and ideographic name, composed of one invariable

and

of a characteristic epithet, varying with each species. On the other hand, no trace has been found of a scientific

methodical system of medicine.

the Chaldceo- Assyrian civilisation.

This

and had in reality no existence in Herodotus mentions* as one of the

art

most remarkable peculiarities of the customs of the Babylonians, the absence of any physician. People meeting in the street accosted each
other, to ask mutually for advice as to the complaints they suffered

from.

Sick people were carried into the

puljlic

ways, and there con-

sultations were held as to the treatment suitable for their maladies.

The

moreover, was confounded with that of magic, so much in vogue among the Chaldjeo- Assyrians and it appears that very often no other remedies were employed than conjurations and incantations, for

medical

art,

Her.

i.

197.

448
sickness

ANCIENT HISTORY OK THE EAST.

was
considercil to
l)c

tlic

result of ihe action

of evil

spirits,

who

injured the body.*

One

tablet contains a series of incantatioiis of

this kind, to avert the

birth, or

maladies likely to attack a

woman

before child-

when
tlie

nursing, and they arc written in

two languages, Turanian

evils,

Clialdxan and Semitic Assyrian.

or against

Other formula against various

power of magic charms, are to be found on tablets or on We are astonished to find amongst them exclamations that amulets. were used by magicians of the middle ages, and we^e then quite incomprehensible, such as the famous Jlilka,
Iiilka, besha,

bcsha; these

are simple Assyrian words, meaning Go away, go away, evil one, evil one. They came to the west with the Chaldaean magicians at the time of the decline of the

Roman

power, and adepts

to

in the occult sciences trans-

mitted

tlieni

from generation
sciences, next to

generation

as mysterious

words of

sovereign efficacy against the spirits of darkness.

5.

But the

grammar, most frequently met with on

these fragments, a small part only as yet having been published, are

mathematics and astronomy. The lil)rary of Asshurbonipal contained many treatises on arithmetic, and the remains give us reason to think that Pythagoras borrowed the plan of his famous multiplication table
from the Mesopotamian civilisation. It also contained catalogues of observations, both of fixed stars and planets, the remains of which have been found; amongst others, tables of the risings of Venus, Jupiter, and Mars; also of the phases of the moon from day to day during the month. We have, in the preceding chapter, spoken of the
early progress of astronomical

science at

Babylon.

The Assyrians

were in
same.
the

this

the pupils of the Babylonians, and their science was the

The astronomers of ancient Mesopotamia had even determined mean daily movement of the moon, as they had adopted the course

had succeeded, by knowledge of the period of 223 lunations, in predicting eclipses. The most ancient calculation of this kind, that for the eclipse of loth March, 721 B.C., was made by them, and differs from ours Eclipses of the sun, much more difficult by a few minutes only. to calculate, they did not, says Diodorus Siculus, venture to predict they contented themselves with making and registering solar observations. Thus, as we have already seen, two solar eclipses, those of 2nd July, 930, and of 13th June, 809 B.C., are mentioned on the monuments.
of that planet as their measurement for time, and
their

We

derive

much

that

is still

in

use

among astronomers from

to

the civi-

lisation

and science of the Chaldoeo-Assyrians,

which

all

writers of

antiquity bear testimony.

Thus

the division of the ecliptic into twelve

equal parts, forming the Zodiac, and even the figures of the constella*

See page 271.

MEASURES OF TIME.
tions,

449

seem

to

into 360 degrees,

have originated with them. The division of the circle and the division of a chord of the circle, equal to the
called degrees
;*

radius, into sixty equal parts,

the division of those

degrees into sixty minutes, of the minute into sixty seconds, and of the

second into sixty thirds, as well as the invention of the mode of notation marking these divisions of the degree, are due to the Chaldseo-Assyrians.

week of seven days, dedicated to the seven planetary bodies worshipped by them as divine beings, and the order assigned by them to the days has not changed from time immemorial. Having invented the gnomon, they
also
is

To them

to

be attributed the

institution of the

to divide the day into twenty-four hours, the hour into and the minute into sixty seconds. Their great periods The great cycle of 43,200 of time were calculated on this scale. years, regarded by them as the period of the precession of the It equinoxes, was considered as one day in the life of the universe. was divided into twelve "sars," or cosmic hours, each of 3,600 years, and each subdivided into six ners, of 600 years; the ner again into ten sosses, or cosmic minutes, of sixty years; and thus the ordinary year

were the

first

sixty minutes,

was a second of the great chronological period. This was all founded on the peculiar method employed by the
Chaldseo- Assyrians in indicating fractions.

They

invariably divided

unity into sixty equal parts, each such part again divided into sixty,

" Construction de
in

See Delambre, Astronomic Aiicienne, tom. II., livre iii., chap. 2, la Table des Cord es, " where is explained the manner which the Greeks expressed the subdivision of the arcs and chords

of circles.

The curvilinear length of the circumference of a circle was divided into 360 equal parts, called degrees, and, consequently, the arc, which is the sixth part of that circumference, contained sixty degrees. the chord of that arc, as is well known, is equal to the radius of the circle; and the rectilinear length of the radius was, in like manner, divided into sixty equal rectilinear parts, which were also called degrees, but must be carefully distinguished from the degrees of the

Now

circumference. For the subdivision of degrees of each of these kinds the sexagesimal system of notation was employed, each degree being divided into sixty minutes, each minute into sixty seconds, each second into sixty thirds, and so on. And tables having been constructed, by which multiplication, division, and other numerical operations could he facilitated (Delambre, tom. ii., p. 32), and a system of trigonometry, both plane and spherical, having been invented and adapted to this notation (Delambre, tom. ii., chap. iii. iv.), complicated questions of arithmetic and Delambre gives several trigonometry became capable of solution. Communicated by the Rev. Temple examples completely worked out. Chevallier.

G G


450
ami

ANCIENT IILSIOKV OF THE EAST,

This it is very this sexagesimal division was continued to infinity. evident was the result of a wise combination of a very practical character, intended to combine the advantages of the two systems of
dividing unity that have been in dispute at
nations
all

times and

among
among

all

the decimal and the duodecimal.

The number

sixty, in fact,
is

is divisible

by

all

the divisors of ten and of twelve, and

all

the numbers
fractions, the

tliat

could be chosen as an invariable denominator for

Sexaone possessing the greatest number of divisors. of the divisions and of the gesimal numeration regulated the scale multiples in the metrical system of I'jabylon and Nineveh, the wisest

and best organised

This
is

in the ancient world.

the only system, previous to the introduction of the French

all

metrical system, where

proportions were scientifically concordant

and founded on the fundamental plan of all unities of superficies, capacity and weight being derived from one primitive and typical linear measurement, an idea adopted also by the French republican comThe cubit of 525 millimetres mission on weights and measures. (=20"67 ins.) was the basis of the whole system. This was divided Multiinto 60 parts, corresponding to the 60 minutes of the degree. the number of the degrees of the circle, it produced the plied by 360,
stade of 189 metres (nearly 207 yds.), the unit of measures of distance. The foot of 315 millimetres (12-4 ins.) was to the cubit as 3 to 5, and

was therefore 36 lines. The square of this foot (= I53'8 sq. ins.) became the lowest and fundamental unit, on which were founded all The cube of this foot was the metreta, land and superficial measures. or medimnus of 30J- litres (= 1,922-3 ins.), the standard of all measures of capacity and the weight of the cube foot filled with water gave the talent of 30 kil. 650 grs. (=67-57 ozs.), the fundamental unit of weight; and the sexagesimal division of this produced the mina of 510-83 grs. (= 1-13 ozs.), and the drachma of 8-513 grs. (= -019 ozs.).
;

The

greater part of these measures passed from the Tigro-Euphrates

basin to the various neighbouring^ countries of Asia, and even to the Greeks, preserving often their names, for both fiva and ofioXbg are

Hellenised Assyrian words, losing, however, more or less in the transit their original character and scientific proportion.
6.

Tlie Chaldseo-Assyrians were acquainted with the solar year of

their ordinary civil

But 365J days, and made use of it in their astronomical calculations. and religious year was a lunar year, composed of twelve months, alternately of twenty-nine and thirty days. This year was borrowed by the Hebrews previous to the time of Moses, probably
from the time of Abraham.

The Jewish names

:

for the

same as the Assyrian, as we may see by the following two calendars are arranged in parallel columns

table,

months are the where the

ASSYRIAN MONTHS AND YEAR.

45i


452

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Section V.
Religion.
last

1.

Till",

skilful

explorations of the

twenty-five

years

in

the

countries bordering on the Tigi'is and Euphrates have given us

mueh

more

correct ideas

on the subject of the Assyro-Babylonian mythology

than had been handed "down by the Greeks. Nevertheless many ])oints still remain in great obscurity as to the religion common with a few
exceptions to the two great Semitic cities of Mesopotamia.

The
and

religion of Assyria
s]:)irit

and Babylonia was,

its

in its essential principles

in the general

of

conceptions, of the same character as the

as all

religion of Egypt, and in general

pagan

religions.
it

When we

penetrate beneath the surface of gross polytheism

had acquired from

we

popular superstition, and revert to the original and higher conceptions, shall find the whole based on the idea of the unity of the Deity, the
relic

last

of the primitive

revelation, disfigured

by and

lost

in

the

monstrous ideas of Pantheism, confounding the creature with the Creator, and transforming the Deity into a god-world, whose manifestaBeneath this tions are to be found in all the jihcnomcna of nature.

supreme and

sole

God,

this great All, in

whom

all

things are lost and

absorbed, are ranked in an order of emanation, corresponding to their importance, a whole race of secondary deities, emanations from his very
substance,
festations.

who are merely personifications of His attributes and maniThe differences between the various pagan religions the

same

in principle

is

chiefly

marked by the

differences

between these

secondaiy divine personages and their reciprocal nature. Thus, as we have already seen, the imagination of the Egyptians had

been especially struck by the various stages of the daily and yearly course of the sun in this they saw the most imposing manifestation of that which best revealed the laws of the government of the the Deity
;

world

and

in

this

they sought their divine personifications.

The

Chaldreo-Assyrians, especially devoted to astronomy, saw in the Astral, and especially in the planetary system, a manifestation of the divine
being.

They considered

the stars as his true external manifestation,

and

in their religious system

made them

the visible evidence of the

subordinate divine emanations from the substance of the infinite being, whom they identified with the world, his work. 2. The supreme god, the first and sole principle from whom all other
deities

were derived, was

Ilu,

whose name

signifies

God par

excellence.

Their idea of him was too comprehensive, too vast, to have any determined external form, or consequently to receive in general the adoration of the people and from this point of view there is a certain analogy between Ilu and the Chronos of the Greeks, with whom he was compared by the
;

latter.

In Chaldsea

dedicated to

him

it does not seem that any temple was ever specially but at Nineveh and generally throughout Assyria


GODS OF ASSYRIA.
he
received the
peculiarly national

453

derived the

name of

the country,

name of Asshur (whence was Mat Asshur), and this itself seems
With
this title

derived from the Arian

name of

the deity, Asura.

he

was
he

the great

god of the

land, the especial protector of the Assyrians,

who gave victory to their arms. The inscriptions designate him as " Master or Chief of the Gods." He it is who is to be recognised in the figure, occasionally found on the Assyrian monuments, but adopted in later times by the Persians to represent their Ormuzd, of a human bust wearing the royal tiara in the middle of a circle borne by two large eagle wings, and with an eagle's tail.* 3. Below Ilu, the universal and mysterious source of all, was placed a triad, composed of his three first external and visible manifestations, and occupying the summit of the hierarchy of gods in popular worship Anu, the Oannes of the Greek writers, the primordial chaos, the first
material

organiser of the world

emanation of the divine being Ac, called also Bin

;

Bel,

the
is,

demiurgus, the

that

the divine "

Son

"

* There are many examples of this winged figure of Asshur in the British Museum, both on the sculptured monuments and on the signet cylinders. Eleven may be counted on the sculptures in the " Assyrian Gallery." It may be observed that in all examples the eagle's wings and tail are attached, not to the human bust, but to the circle ; in some the figure is placed in the ring, in others merely imposed on it ; in one, at the entrance of the Gallery, the figure is placed in what seems evidently intended for the sun's disc; in all others the ring is as distinctly

formed as the

tire

of a wheel.
in

some very roughly executed,

There are also several examples, which the human bust does not appear,

but merely the winged ring. In the war-scenes the figure of Asshur hovers over the king's chariot, and exhibits the same action as the king. If the king is shooting his arrow, the god does the same, using a three-pointed arrow (see the vignette to this volume); if the king holds out his right hand to promise pardon, so also does the god. The translator had an opportunity (through the kindness of Dr. Birch) of inspecting the signet cylinders in the Museum, in search of this emblem. There are thirty-one examples, more or less complete and psrfect, from the inexpressibly beautiful and perfect cylinder, labelled as that of Muses-Ninip, 800 B.C. [Mushishi-Adar], where the whole details of the wings and figure are rendered as perfectly as on any of the monuments, down to some on which the emblem is barely legible ; of these there are eighteen without the human bust. Among the cylinthe one usually termed the "Assyrian Trinity," as, besides the is a human head on each of the wings; there is also, on another cylinder, what appears to be a very rude attempt to produce the same figure. The common occurrence of this emblem on some of the monuments and its entire absence on others may perhaps be explained by supposing that it was used only by kings or by private persons whose names were compounded of the name of the god. Tr.
ders
is

figure in the ring, there

4S4

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

par excellence

the

divine light, the intelligence penetrating, directing,

and vivifying the universe. These three divine personilitalions, equal in power and con-substantial, were not placed in tlie same degree of emanation, i)ut were regarded as having, on the contrary, issued the one from the other, Ao from Oannes and Bel from Ao. Oannes, the " Lord of the Lower World, the Lord of Darkness," was represented on the monuments under the strange figure of a man with an eagle's tail, and for his liead-dress an enormous fish, whose open mouth rises over It is under this form that his head, while the body covers his shoulders. Berosus tells us, according to Babylonian traditions, he floated on the Bel, the "Father of the Gods," was surface of the waters of Chaos. usually represented under an entirely human form, attired as a king, wearing a tiara with bull's horns, the symbol of power. But this god took many other secondary forms, the most important being Bel Dagon, We do not know a human bust springing from the body of a fish. exactly the typical figure of Ao or Bin, "the intelligent guide, the Lord of the visible world, the Lord of knowledge, glory, and life;" the serpent seems to have been his principal symbol. Each god of this triad had a corresponding female deity his reproduction in the passive form
inscriptions,

to

use the expression of

many
Bilit,

of the

"his

reflection."

Anat, the Anaitis of the Greek writers,

;

the passive reproductive matter, accompanied Oannes

whose

name was rendered by

belonged to Bel
with Mylitta,
4.
;

the Greeks as Mylitta, the mother of the gods,

often confounded

and lastly, Taauth, " the great lady,'' was the female reproduction of Ao.
triad represented, as

The

first

we have

seen, the production of the

material world, an emanation from the substance of the divine being;

first

the primordial chaos, uncreated matter, sprung from the funda-

mental and sole first cause of all things; secondly, intelligence we may almost say "the Word" animating and fertilising all; and lastly, the demiurgus, who ordains and brings into regulated order the universe,

with which he himself

tions
is

is

inextricably

mixed

up.

The

series of

emana-

then continued, and a second triad is produced with personages no longer vague and indeterminate in character, like those of the first, but with a clearly defined sidereal aspect, each representing a known
striking external manifestations of the deity: these were

which the Chaldseo- Assyrians saw the most Shamash, the Moon god; and a new form of Ao or Bin, inferior to the Sun; Sin, the first, and representing him as god of the atmosphere or firmament. 5. Below this second triad in the divine hierarchy, and in the order of
celestial

body

those

in

emanations, are found the gods of the

five

planets

Adar

(Saturn),

Nergal (Mars), Ishtar (Venus), and Nebo (Mercury). The worship of Merodach, though not much cultivated at Nineveh, was of primary importance at Babylon, where he was regarded as one of the

Merodach

(Jupiter),

GODS OF ASSYRIA.
principal gods.

455

He was

a secondary form, another manifestation of

he was called "the ancient one of the gods, the supreme judge, the master of the horoscope"; he was represented as a man erect and walking, and with a naked sword in his hand. Adar,* "the fire," called also Samdan, "the powerful," although his planet had been called Saturn by the Greeks, was in
Bel, in an inferior rank in the hierarchy;
reality the Assyrian

Hercules; his appellations are

"the

terrible, the

lord of warriors, the strong one, the destroyer of his enemies, he

who

reduces the disobedient, the exterminator of rebels," and in other cases,

"the son of the Zodiac." On some monuments he is represented in company with Merodach, and in the same manner. He is represented
in the magnificent colossal figines in the

Museum of the Louvre, and

of the

British
his

Museum where he

is

seen as a god of terrible aspect, strangling in

arms a lion that appears quite small in comparison with him. With the surname of Malik, " king," Adar Malik, the Bible mentions him with " Oannes, the king," Aim Malik (2 Kings xvii. 31), as the principal god of Sippara, where the inhabitants " burnt their children in the fire" in their honor. In general these planetary gods are only forms, secondary manifestations, of the higher order. Such is the connection between Nebo and Ao; Nebo also is distinguished as the "supreme intelligence "; he is the god of prophetic inspiration, and of eloquence, and
also the special guardian of royal prerogative, the protector of kings,

and the prototype

the

whom

they reproduce on earth.

Like Bel, he has on

monuments an

entirely

human

form, with the tiara and the dress of

a king; three pairs of horns, I'anged one above the other, decorate his

and four large wings are often attached to his shoulders; the is one of his common attributes. Ishtar reproduces among the planetary gods Anat and Bilit, the great goddess of nature, the mother of all the gods and of all beings she is their active and martial form, for she is called " the Goddess of Battles, the Queen of Victories, .she who leads armies to the fight and is the judge of warlike exploits "; but she has a double form, uniting two characters one fierce and sanguinaiy, the other voluptuous for under the names of Zarpanit and Nana she presides over the reproduction of beings, and over sensual
tiara,

sceptre also

is in this last character always represented naked, always and with the two hands on the chest. Moreover two Ishtars were always distinguished, that of Arbela (called also Arbail) and that of Nineveh, who presided over the two fortnights of the montii.t The

pleasures; she
full face,

* This

is

the divinity whose

name has

We

shall give elsewhere the reasons

hitherto been read as Ninip. and proofs of this new reading,

Adar.

t Hence the common

fifteen." just as .Sin,

who

ideographic designation, "The goddess presides over the month, is called the "God

thirty."


456
plural

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

name
of {]\U doulile Islitar,
Islitarolh,
is

was the
very

f)ii_q;in

of the

I'luvnician Ashtaroth.

Nergal, whose image

to his star

uncommon, stands

on the legs of a cock, and carries a sword in his hand.

of the

The

application

name

of

Mars

receives in the inscriptions are

was quite natural, for the titles he "the great hero, the king of fight, the

master of battles, champion of the gods," and also

chase."
7.

"god

of the

Such were the great gods of Nineveh and Babylon.

Below them

popular superstition believed in an immense number of personifications of inferior order, of lesser gods, or rather ^em, whom it would be

We must, however, mention some perwaste of time to enumerate. sonages who are found on the monuments occupying an important position in the Chaldseo-Assyrian pantheon, and who were evidently
other forms of the gods already named, but whose position has not as
yet been precisely determined.

Such

is

Nisroch, called also Shalman,

the

"king of

fluids,"

he

who

"presides over the course of

is

human
the

destiny," and

who

is

also the protector of marriages; this

is

god

with an eagle's head and large wings, whose image

the sculptures of the Assyrian palaces.

so

common on

was

in the

As we have already seen, it temple of this god at Nineveh that Sennacherib was assas-

Possibly we ought to consider this god as another form of Oannes. The great gods are often all invoked one after the other at the beginning of the solemn inscriptions of the kings of Assyria. Sargon has
sinated by his sons.

given the names of eight of them on the gates of the city he founded.

" Shamash has conferred on me all I possess," says he, in an inscription, "Bin gave me good fortune; I have named the great eastern gates after Shamash and Bin. Bel Dagon laid the foundation of my city, Bilit Taauth grinds like paint the elements of the world I have named the gi-eat southern gates after Bel Dagon and Bilit Taauth. Oannes prospers the work of my hand, Ishtar leads armies to battle I have called the great western gates after Oannes and Ishtar. Nisroch Shalman presides over marriages, the mistress of the gods presides
; ;

over births;
Bilit."

have dedicated the great northern gates

to

Nisroch and

Section VI.

Arts.

I. Until very lately it was necessary to rely entirely on the statements of authors such as Ctesias as to the great development of art among the Assyrians, and the splendour of the edifices of Nineveh and Babylon. It was only in 1844 that M. Botta, French consul at Mosul, made the first discovery of an Assyrian palace, on the site of a little village ^named Khorsabad, near that city. This discovery soon led to

ASSYRIAN BUILDINGS.
others
;

457

and now a school of

is

art,

the very existence and greatness of

possible now, with the aid of

which, a short time ago, rested only on the testimony of ancient

authors,

known

to

every one.

It

is

the specimens that are to be found in

all

the large

museums of Europe,

and especially in the Louvre and British Museum of the splendid works on the subject of Assyrian explorations, published in France and in England by M. Botta, M. Place, and Mr. Layard, and especially ot the admirable essays of a P'rench architect, M. Thomas, in M. Place's

work
2.

to sketch the essential characteristics of Assyrian ai'chitecture,

sculpture, and painting.

The

Assyrians were generally in the habit of piling up large

artificial
hills,

on which to erect temples, or cities. Nineveh was almost entirely built on artificial elevations, extending over an immense surface. Its walls were 360 stades in circumference, according to the testimony of one of Sennacherib's inscriptions the outer casing was built of bricks, the interior was composed of earth; and this explains how, when the casing was removed, the mass of earth crumbled down and mixed with the soil. The enormous enceinte of the capital of Assyria was quadrilateral in shape, and may still be recognised, marked by a series of mounds in a
as platforms

mounds, or

palaces,

regular line scattered over the plain.

These
the

artificial hills,
still

serving as the base of great edifices, and where

met with in various parts of Assyria, to number of several hundred. Three only have as yet been excavated, and these contained the palaces of Khorsabad (Dur Sharyukin), Nimnid
the ruins are
buried, are

(Calah), and Koyundjik (Nineveh).

These
first,

palaces, standing on artificial hills, were, from their

hill,

mode

of

construction, in reality each a second artificial

erected above the

to

with rooms excavated in their sides an arrangement that seems have originated from the nature of their building materials, and also from the necessity for placing dwellings in an airy situation in such a

hot climate.
for building,

The
and

soil of

Assyria supplied an abundance of stone

fit

also a coarse grey alabaster, very easily sculptured,

edifices. The Babyhad been compelled by the
all their

but too

soft to

be used for the walls of gigantic

soil,

lonians, the original colonisers of Assyria,

nature of their

edifices of bricks,

entirely composed of alluvial clay, to build some burned, others merely sun-dried.

The

Assyrians never rose above the traditions of their original in-

structors, notwithstanding the difference in the nature of their soil; but

they preferred to the dried or burnt brick a peculiar description of

" pise" whicli they seem

still soft,

to

have invented, composed of bricks used while This

so as to adhere closely to one another without cement, so that

each wall or vault, when dry, formed one single compact mass.
is

the only material used in any Assyrian edifice that has as yet been

45S

ANCIENT HISTORY OV

TIIK EAST.

excavated; stone is found only as a casing, arranged in large thin sculptured slabs along the panels of halls, luxuriously decorated, and

paving arranged on the external facings of terraces. The nature of the materials employed must necessanly exercise great influence, and impose unalterable laws on the arrangements of any system of archiin
tecture.

Building entirely with this "pise," the Assyrians were compelled to give an enormous thickness to the walls, to construct the halls

very narrow and very low as comi^ared with their length, for a vault never be very strong; never to ])ui](l edifices more than one story high and lastly, to load the roof with a
constructed of "pise" could
;

very thick mass of earth, so that the rain slu)uid not. penetrate, and the heat of llie sun should not cause it to crack throughout all its thickness. From these circumstances arose the essential characteristics and general
greater proportion to
3.

aspect of Assyrian architecture, in which the base of a building bore a its height than even in Egypt.

occupy an enormous extent of Koyundjik covers a space almost equalling that of the great Temple of Karnak, in Egypt. The plan, however, is always the same they are composed of a succession of
palaces
at

Some

of the Assyrian

ground.

That of Sennacherib

immense square

more or less numerous, according to the extent of the building; around them are arranged halls or chambers, opening one into the other, with no other means of entry. Other courts, or
courts,

esplanades, are placed between the building itself and the terraced wall

bordering the

artificial hill it

stands on.
is

The

halls are never

more than

forty feet broad, but their length

frequently very great, so as to give

them the appearance of mere galleries. The largest of those in the palace at Khorsabad is 116 feet long; in the palace of Asshurnazirpal, at Nimrud, one has been found 140 feet long; and finally, the length
of the principal hall in the palace at Koyundjik is 180 feet These long galleries were used for halls of ceremony, and were among the

most

characteristic pecuHarities of Assyrian architecture.

The

internal

up by a panelling of sculptured slabs of stone, and above that by enamelled bricks. Other halls were ornamented entirely in the latter way. The chambers, or halls for common use, had the -walls plastered with coloured stucco, sometimes painted in fresco. We also learn from the inscriptions that there were many rooms entirely panelled with wood, and that the most precious odorous kinds were employed for the purpose the species enumerated as being used for
said, decorated

walls of these great halls were, as

to a certain height

we have already

panelling are the sea-pine, the

pistachio, ebony,

fir,

the cypress, the cedar, the wild

and sandal-wood.
all

No

remains of the panelling have

as yet been found, for

the palaces that have been excavated were

destroyed by

fire

during the disasters that occurred at the end of the

Assyrian empire.

WINGED BULLS.

459

For assemblies too numerous for the great interior halls, the courts, ornamented all round by gigantic sculptures, were used ; and on such occasions they were converted into halls by a velum stretched over them. Slender columns, sometimes of stone, more often of wood covered with
metal, supported jjorticoes of

wood

painted in brilliant

colours,

ex-

These were sometimes made to imitate palm or other trees, but more often crowned by voluted capitals, the origin of the Ionic order; sometimes, again, they were surmounted by
tending across these courts.

metal figures of real or imaginary animals.

All the great gates opening into these courts, and the esplanades

giving access to the principal parts of the building, were ornamented

by

colossal statues of winged,

human-headed

bulls; the faces of these

symbolical figures always look outwards, and the bodies are attached to
the side wall of the gateway.
to the size

The

size of these bulls,

always colossal,

and importance of the gateway where they vaies according stand. Some scholars have wished to identify these fantastic figures with the representation of the god Ninip, or Bel Merodach, placed as a
protector at the entrance of the palace.

We, however,

believe these

Ninevite bulls to be the prototypes of the cherubim of the

Ark

of the

Covenant, representing no one particular divinity, but being the visible 2mbodiment of an idea analogous to that expressed by the Egyptian
iphinx; symbolising generally a divine protecting and guardian power, combining both physical force and intelligence, just as tlie symbolical figure combines the body of the strongest animal with a human head. These bulls are called Alapi and Kirubi, and the last name, Kirub, is
applied, in an extended sense, to the gateway
itself.

Sometimes

lions are found in place of bulls, also with wings

and

human

heads, the prototypes of the Grecian sphinx, a variety of the

;

same symbol
edifices of

these latter are called Nirgalli, in the inscriptions deLastly, at the gate of one of the

scribing the works of the palace.

Nimrud, these emblematical figures are replaced by simple colossal lions, erect, and in the attitude of fierce and vigilant guardians. Above these bulls, or the figures which, as we have seen, sometimes replace them, the great gateways were built with an arched vault, with
architrave

outside decorated

with enamelled bricks.

One

of these

arched gateways was discovered entire, with all its decorations, in the It would have been brought excavations of M. Place at Khorsabad.
to Paris, but

with

all

by a most lamentable accident it was lost on the Tigris, the antiquities collected by the French expedition into Mesowere
flat

potamia.

The
in

roofs of Assyrian edifices

and

terraced, surrounded

a crenelated battlement cut into gradines, and this plan

by was preserved
This

Arab

architecture of the middle ages for the top of the external walls

of buildings, as

may be

seen by the beautiful mosques at Cairo.

46o

ANCIENT IITSTORV OF THE EAST.

is

characteristic peculiarity
bas-reliefs
;

clearly indicated in all the pictures

in

on the
it

and thus M. Thomas was decidedly right

introducing

into his restorations.

Nor

is

this

the

only thing that Arabian and

art, for

Persian architecture borrowed from Assyrian

plates

on looking

at

the

who accompanied M. Place has restored the exterior of the palace at Khorsabad, we may almost fancy that they are drawn from modern Arab buildings. The common use of
where the accomplished
artist

enamelled pottery for panelling walls in the Persian buildings of the middle ages originated in Assyria. The employment of cupolas in Arab and Persian architecture is due to the same source. Positive
proofs were found in the excavations of
scpiare halls of

M. Place

that

some of the

moderate size were roofed by hemispherical cupolas, formed of "pise," and made in one piece, rising above the level of
the terraces.
cu]5olas.

Several bas-reliefs, moreover, represent these Assyrian

The

other halls had either a vaulted, or

inscriptions inform us that the

and the

ceiling

more probably a flat, was formed of

roof,

solid

roof. The timber was was considered more durable than any other, such as sea-pine, fir, cypress, or cedar. This last wood was brought at great expense from the forests of Lebanon and Amanus, and

beams, sustaining the weight of the earthen

it

generally of resinous wood, as

military expeditions were sometimes

cutting cedars.

The

projecting beams, as

made merely for we learn also

the purpose of
from, the

monu-

ments, were covered with sheets of bronze, no doubt stamped with figures and ornaments.

The
still

halls

are in the houses in

must have been lighted by openings in the ceiling, as they Annenia, for no trace has yet been found of a

window; moreover, there are halls in the palaces that are surrounded on all sides by other halls, and therefore could be lighted only from the roof. But the power of the sun in summer, and the violence of the
rain in winter, precluded the possibility of leaving these skylights en-

believe that I have discovered in the inscripby which they were covered, and that is by seal skins made into parchment, and thus made semitransparent and as translucent
tirely
I

open

to the air.

tions the metho<i

as unpolished glass.

employ

in a similar

At the present day, the Danes of Greenland manner the skin of the nor-whale as a substitute

for glass in their

windows. must add one last fact of great importance in the history of the art of building namely, that the Assyrians, from the time of Asshurnazirpal, were acquainted with the true arch, built with a key-stone, of a circular and also of an ogival form. A drain, built in this manner of burnt brick, has been found leading under the most ancient part of the palaces of Nimrud. The courts and halls of Assyrian buildings were paved with larg

We

PALACES OF ASSYRIA.

461

furnace-baked bricks, the door-sills with stone, sculptured so as to represent a richly designed mat. The walls rested on a bed of sand,

mixed, according to a superstitious custom mentioned in

tions,

many

inscrip-

with various amulets, chiefly necklaces of large cornelian beads.

the door-sill were hidden clay idols, placed there to prevent any

Under

from entering. 4. One only of the Assyrian palaces has as yet been completely and in all parts uncovered, that at Khorsabad (Dur Sharyukin), and this is of great interest from its complete unity of plan, having been built in a few years, in one reign, and with no departure from the original conception. It therefore may be taken as an excellent type of the usual
evil influence

Assyrian plan and arrangement of a palace.

It is

composed of three

great buildings entirely distinct, of different dimensions, connected with

each other and forming one single royal dwelling, placed on the summit These buildings correspond exactly of an enormous artificial mound.
to the three divisions
still

found in the houses of the wealthy and

or palace properly so
for ceremonial recep-

luxurious at
called,
tion,

Bagdad and Bassorah. The seraglio, inhabited by the men, and where the halls
were;
the harem;

and the khan, or servants' The resemblance apartments, what may be called the common hall. is so exact that, as we do not know the Assyrian names of each, it is impossible not to apply to the divisions of these Assyrian palaces the
the selamlik,

names now
dwellings.

in use in the

country to designate the great divisions of the

The

different buildings of the palace of

Khorsabad were

built

on two

platforms of different heights, arranged in the form of the letter T.

One, the highest, was square, with

its

corners adjusted exactly to the

less elevated, is in the

four cardinal points; the other, very

much

form

of an elongated rectangle, standing at the S.E. face of the square terrace,

and lower than

it

at its

two extremities.
its

On

the loftier terrace

stood the palace, properly so called, with

wall.

entrance to the N.E.,

facing the open country, and opening on to the ramparts of the city

This entrance, however, was not in the middle of the facade, no people were ever less particular than the Assyrians as to reguthus all the courts of their larity and parallelism in their architecture palaces have four great gates in their four sides, but none of them is placed exactly opposite the one to which it ought to correspond.
for
;

The

general mass of the buildings of the seraglio, or palace, forms a

square, with
building.

some few
principal

irregularities,

very

trifling

for

an Assyrian

an and surrounded on all sides by buildings. Those on three of the faces seem to have been slight, and to have been lodgings for slaves and for the body-guard of the king

The

gateway

to the north-east gives access to

immense

court, rectangular in shape,

those on the fourth side were the main buildings of the palace.

What

462
is

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

lliorc

very umisual,

was

a jierfectly regular fa9acle, with a gateway,

all

the most liighly ornaiiieiUcd in

centre.

the building, placed exactly in the

edifices

In the interior arrangements of this building, the largest of all the of Khorsabad, there was neither regularity nor symmetry.

Two-thirds to the north-west part of the building was occupied by the grand reception hall, or selamlik, and its large and sumptuous galleries, with walls cased with bas-reliefs; one-third to the south-east by the
inhabited apartments, with smaller and less decorated rooms.

Passages

opened into two of the

sides of the large court

one on the north-west

led to a square esplanade, or court, occupying the northern angle of the

artificial mound of the palace, in front of a building touching the north-west face of the seraglio, with which it had no internal communication. This building was most lavishly ornamented ; it comprised

six

immense
It

halls decorated with sculpture,

and some other smaller

rooms.

was,

we may

almost say, a second palace grafted on to the

rivalling in
its

first a second selamlik,

splendour that of the seraglio.

It would be rash to make any on the subject, but we may conjecture that it might have been the palace of the heir apparent ; for Sennacherib was a great personage, even during the lifetime of his father Sargon, and must have had his own palace among the buildings of the royal dwelling. The passage opening into the south-east side of the reception-hall

What

could have been

purpose?

assertion

of the seraglio led to the lower platform, and to the great court of the
offices.

The lower platform of the artificial hill built up for the foundation of the palace of Sargon, was occupied by the khan and by the harem. This portion of the edifice looked towards the city, and communicated directly with it. In the midst was the khan properly so called, that
an immense square court, surrounded on all its sides by buildings, grooms, and for the gi-eater nun^Jjer of slaves. It was approached from the city by two enormous flights of steps, in the
is,

stables, lodgings for

middle of the south-east face of the terrace. An elaborately decorated passage led, as we have said, from this court of the khan into the

two small doors also gave direct com; munication with the inhabited rooms of the palace. To the right of the immense court we have just mentioned, the khan, was a building of
reception-hall of the seraglio

some

extent, with
offices,

of the

or

many courts and numerous common rooms of the palace.

still

chambers, forming part

To

continue the use of the names

applied in

modem

oriental

palaces, so similar to those of Assyria,

we must

distinguish this from

the khan,

and

call

it

the khazneh, or treasury; for there, as the excathe stores of provisions and

vations of

M. Place have proved, were

utensils for the use of the royal household, as well as places of custody

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORIES.
for all the valuables that

463
tells

Sargon, in his dedicatoiy inscription,

us

he had acquired by force of arms and stored in his palace. The harem was adjoining the khazneh. It was a building of moderate extent, containing three courts the walls of one of them was covered with the richest decoration in enamelled bricks ; many long galleries, intended no doubt for feasts or festivals and lastly, a large number of rooms for habitation. This harem was shut in as closely as possible; all communication with the outer world was intercepted, and the women must have found themselves in a real prison. One single vestibule, guarded by eunuchs, gave access to it; this had two issues, one communicating with the great court of the offices, and was the entry by which people came in from outside; the other opening on a long narrow court leading to the inhabited apartments of the seraglio through this the king had access to his harem without being seen by the puljlic. Behind the harem was an enormous tower, or pyramid in seven

Remains of similar constructions have stages, nearly fifty yards high. been found at Nimrud (Calah), and Kileh Sherghat (Elassar) and there seems nq doubt that they were attached to every Assyrian palace, for the inscriptions frequently mention the one belonging to the palace
;

at

Nineveh.

The seven

stages, equal in height,

it,

in area

than the one beneath

colours,

and thus presented

to

and each one smaller were covered with stucco of different view the colours consecrated to the seven

heavenly bodies, the least important being at the base: white (Venus), black (Saturn), purple (Jupiter), blue (Mercury), vermilion (Mars),

moon), and gold (the sun). This was the ancient staged pyramid of the first Semitic Chaldrean empire, adopted and but slightly modified by the Assyrians, by giving a rather smaller base and less difference between the relative sizes of the stages, so as to make it resemble rather a tower than a pyramid. But buildings of this kind, called Zikurat, and so frequently mentioned by the kings in their annals as having been erected by them, were not used in Assyria for temples, as they had been in Chaldasa under the first empire, and as they continued to be used in Babylon down to the destraction of the city. The sanctuary crowning the summit of the Chaldtean pyramids had disappeared. The Assyrian Zikurat was simply an observatory, and on its summit the priestly astrologers, pupils of the Chaldtcans, attempted to read the future in the stars. Astronomy had, in fact, quickly degenerated
silver (the

into astrology in Chaldoea

the belief in the direct infhitnce of the stars

on

was one of the most deeply rooted articles of faith in Babylon, and had passed into Assyria. The Ninevite kings, like those of Babylon, undertook no enterprise without first consulting the presages of the stars, and for this purpose they always had within reach, in their palaces, astrologers and an observatory. We have already seen that Sennacherib himself says that he gave up an expedition, undertaken
terrestrial affairs


464

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

with cvoiy chance of success, and declined a decisive battle when everything seemed to promise him a victory, because the stars did not have also stated the influence that, according to seem favourable.

We

tlie

monuments, two

eclipses exercised, the

one on the accession of

of the

Asshurbanipal, the other on that of Sargon. The royal astrologers kept a constant watch from the height

Zikurat on the state of the heavens and the movements of the stars, so as to interpret them by the aid of the astrological tables so often mentioned
in the inscriptions.

"observations

They furnished the king with an account of their and some tablets bearing reports of this kind were found

in the archives of the palace of Koyundjik.

As an example, one

of

them records the observation of the exact day of the spring equinox: " On the 6th of the month Sivan the day and the night were equal, six May double hours for the day, and six double hours for the night. and Merodach protect my lord the king." Nebo Another on a tablet in the British Museum still unpublished (marked K., 86) "To the founder of buildings, my lord the king, his humble servant, Naboiddin, chief astrologer of Nineveli^ May Nebo and Merodach be propitious to the founder of buildings, my lord the On the 15th of the month we have observed the entry of the king. moon into the lunar node and the result. The moon was eclipsed." "To Another, in the same collection (marked K., 78), runs thus: the king, my lord, his humble servant Ishtar .... chief astrologer of Arbela peace to my lord the king. May Nebo, Merodach, and Ishtar

On the 29th of the of Arbela be propitious to my lord the king. we observed the lunar node, but we have not seen the month Sivan moon. The 2nd of the month Duz, in the year of Belsun, governor of It follows from this last inscription that the the city of Hirmirdan."
Assyro-Chaldaean astrologers, not yet able to calculate eclipses of the sun, watched attentively at each new moon to see whether one would
occur.
religious 5. The Zikurat in Assyria was not therefore a sanctuary for worship, like those in Chaldsa, as some scholars have supposed. But the Assyrians had their temples built in a style much resembling their

palaces.

None

excavated, and their splendour

rivalled those of Egypt.

of the large sacred edifices of Assyria have as yet been may no doubt in some respects have

But explorers have found at Nimrud, at Koyundjik, some temples, small indeed, but most beautifully decorated, forming part of the palaces and these, doubtless,

Khorsabad, and

at

at the were copies of the larger structures. those at behind the seraglio western angle of the upper platform, Nimrud (for there were two in that palace) were adjoining the Zikurat.

That

at

Khorsabad was
;

The

principal part of these temples, the sanctuary proper,

;

is

always a

large hall of great length

at

one of

its

extremities

is

a square recess of

ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.
considerable dimensions, to contain the statue of the god.

465

Sometimes

a smaller hall

a vestibule,
is
is

ox pronaos

stands in front of the sanctuary,

and then the entrance

in

at the end,

opposite the recess for the statue

no vestibule, and then the entry is at the side of the sanctuary, or cella, so that the statue of the god could not be seen from outside. Some small chambers, for use in the temple service, or for custody of the sacred utensils, were arranged around the sanctuary,
cases there

some

or cella.

Bas-reliefs, representing only religious subjects, decorated the

walls of the latter; on each side of the gateway were lions or bulls,
just as in the palaces.

The

external walls of the temples were cased

with enamelled bricks.

6.

Sculpture had

made more

progress than any other art in Assyria,

and had developed a distinctive originality of its own. We do not know what was its state at the commencement of the monarchy, but four centuries afterwards, under Asshurnazirpal, it still bore unquestionable marks of complete archaism a rude and barbaric grandeur. Under Sargon and Sennacherib it had acquired more finish in detail and facility in execution, but still preserved its grand rough outline its Finally, greatest excellence was in the execution of colossal figures. under Asshui^banipal, at the close of the monarchy, it attained its highest degree of elegance, finish, life, and perfection in the imitation of nature, losing, however, the grandeur of the more ancient works. Assyrian sculpture is one of tlie greatest of ancient arts its teachings, received and transmitted by the peoples of Asia Minor, presided over Between the works of Ninevite the first steps of Grecian sculpture. artists and the early works of the Greeks, even to the ^ginetans, we may observe an astonishing connection the celebrated primitive basWarrior of relief of Athens, known by the common name of the Marathon," seems as if detached from the walls of Khorsabad or Koyundjik. Like all primitive art, Assyrian as Well as Egyptian sculptm-e presents a very imperfect imitation of nature, an awkward, almost architectural, stiffness in the design of the figures, and many

'

'

parts represented conventionally,

much

in the style that children of all

all

countries

first

attempt to draw.

In the bas-reliefs, for example,

figures are in profile,

injured, because

it is

even when the composition of the group is easier to design in relief a profile than a full face.
latter.

But Assyrian art springs from a totally different principle to that of

Egypt;
it

has not the solemn and monumental gravity of the

In

place of dealing with great masses, and deducing, so to speak, algebraical formula

from the forms of nature, simplifying the design and

characteristic

the lines through reducing the model by a systematic and intelligent

selection of
its

and

essential elements, as the

Egyptians

attempted to do, Assyrian art sought to give with the utmost care every minute detail ; nothing was omitted ; no embroidery of a garment,

H H


466
no
curl

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

of the
liair

or Ix'ard, no muscle of

arm or leg; and thus

in

Assyria, though by a directly opposite road, art travelled as far from

reality as in Egypt.

Secondary things were exaggerated into matters of primaiy importance, to the destruction of the effect of the whole
as to

work; the muscles of the members were so developed

become

monstrous, the proportions of the different parts of the body were not correct, and from this point of view Assyrian sculpture always remained
in a

lower rank than the Egyptian.

It

never attained that ideality,

that

height of inspiration, that calm, religious grandeur; but, on the

it possessed an energy, a life, a movement, that Egyptian knew. The substance on which the Assyrian sculptures are executed adds still more to this appearance of energy the Assyrians did not use the chisel with facility, and succeeded only when using the gypseous alabaster, soft enough for slabs for panelling the palaces. When they attempted to work hard stone, such as basalt, which the Egyptian artists worked with the finish of a cameo, their work was exceedingly coarse, as may be seen in the Nimrud obelisk. But this awkwardness was redeemed by a surprising energy, by a strength full of grandeur and fire; sometimes they dashed at the stone, and struck out

other hand,

art never

bold lines;

lifelike

forms flashed out into

light, cut in as

with a lion's

paw.
Assyrian sculpture excelled more in the representation of animals

than in the
nature,

human

figure.

Here, too,

its

pnnciple was the opposite of

to

compete with above by epitomising her. The distinctive features of the animal were put together and thus exaggerated; the minor details were omitted; and in this way was produced a sort of very expressive symbol. The whole family of lions was represented by one single lion, always the same ; the model was always powerful, the image very grand. In place of this formidable, laconic, and solemn art, that dealing with great masses on a grand scale, modelling concisely the distinctive features, the Assyrians, in the representation of animals, attempted to produce more of a lifelike picture, sharply cut and shaded, reproducing eveiy possible detail of nature. Far from giving one single conventional type for each
that of the Pharaonic art.

The Egyptians, unable

life,

who

possessed the secret of

raised themselves

species, they

truthfully every action, and,

attempted to give individuality to each figure, depicting if one may say so, the feeling of the moment.
in the sculptures of the palace of

In this they attained to the highest perfection about the time of Asshurbanipal
in
;

and

Koyundjik we may see

hunting scenes figures of animals such as no other art, not even that of the Greeks, can sui-pass for expression. We may especially mention

one

work, incomparably
hunt,

lifelike

we

might almost say touching

true both to the individual

and

to the type, in a great bas-relief re-

presenting a lion

now

in the British

Museum, and

especially

ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.

'

467

one figure of a lioness, who has been wounded in the spine by arrows, and having already lost the use of her hind legs, raises herself painfully on her forepaws to roar at the hunters, and threaten them with her open jaws. 7. Assyrian sculpture is seen to least advantage in statuary; its highest achievements are in bas-reliefs. The few Assyrian statues we possess display a remarkable want of skill ; absolutely flat, they can only be seen from the front. The Ninevite artists, therefore, avoided making

them

as

much

as possible, whilst they almost infinitely multiplied bas-

reliefs,

the best

means they had

for the display of art.

The

three chief epochs

we have

already mentioned in the develop-

ment of Assyrian art, so far as it is at present known, correspond to the three most marked systems of composition in bas-reliefs. Under
Asshumazirpal the figures are few, simply grouped, and very confused, if an attempt is made to introduce any considerable number of them, as in some representations of sieges ; there is a complete absence of all
perception of the laws of perspective; the
generally slow

movement
;

of the figures

is

and slight, but full of truth and propriety. Under Sargon and Sennacherib artists were more ambitious they attempted to represent large scenes and numerous personages, who are more clearly distinguished, but with no better perspective than in the older sculptures. In all hunting scenes the field of the landscape was very rudely represented, and they were compelled to indicate the nature of the country by its characteristic trees and animals, but with the strangest
mistakes in their relative proportions. We see, for instance, in the water fishes as large as the ships; and in the woods birds half as tall as the soldiers. The action of the figures is more vigorous and marked

than in the earlier period, and not

less true to nature.

Lastly, in the

time of Asshurbanipal the bas-relief becomes more conformed to reality and to the sound principles of art, and the artists renounce all pretensions to represent scenes on a different level in the landscape the nature of the place where the scenes of war or hunting occur is simply indicated by a few trees, drawn with striking truth to nature, or by some buildings, faithfully sketched, so that there is but little occasion There is also an improvement to be for mistakes in perspective. remarked on the preceding period in the life and movement of the figures, as well as in the grouping and balancing of the different
elements in the composition.
8.

All the

Assyrian sculptures were brilliantly painted, and the

remains of the colours

may

still

be observed on the

bas-reliefs in the

Museums.

Besides this, painting, properly so-called, formed an im-

portant part of the decoration of Assyrian edifices, whether in the form

of casings of enamelled bricks or of frescoes.

of this kind has been preserved
;

No

large composition

but there are nevertheless fragments

2

H H

468
enoiigli to

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

prove
lliat

the Assyrian paintings resembled

tlie bas-reliefs.

The

figures standing out

flat

but formed by
defniing

on a ground of uniform colour were not shaded, colours, surrounded by a broad black or white band,

and serving exactly the purpose of the lead surrounding figures in the painted glass of the thirteenth century.
the
outline,
9.

An

art

much

cultivated

among

the Assyrians, and carried to a high

It

degree of perfection, was engraving on hard stone.

was principally
on

applied to the manufacture of cylinders for signets, the impression being

taken by rolling them over a soft surface.

The

subjects engraved

them were
adoration.

in general of a

religious

character, assemblages of sacred

symbols, or of images of deities, with one or more persons in the act of

Some

of

them represent hunting

scenes.

The

great

majority of these cylinders are evidently ordinary trade goods of very

But there are also some carefully executed and dimensions, may be advantageously compared, for beauty of art, to the best specimens of basreliefs from Khorsabad and Koyundjik.
careless
finely

workmanship.

engraved

that, in spite of their small

TJI

CHAPTER V. NEW CHALDEAN EMPIRE.

Section I. Su-rvey of the History of Babylon under the SUPREMACY OF THE ASSYRIANS. I314 625 B.C.
I.

Chald^a was
Its focus

tamia.

that great city,

the seat of the most ancient empire of Mesopoand centre was to the south of Babylon ; and although the most ancient in the Tigro-Euphrates Basin, was

always of considerable importance

yet
it

although even

it

was the

religious,

never became the

political, capital of this

empire.

We have already

seen that the

Egyptians under Thothmes III. had overturned the

and installed at Babylon princes designated as Arabs by Berosus, who reigned there for two and a half centuries. When the Assyrian empire, profiting by the declining power of Egypt, established itself towards the end of the fourteenth century before the Christian era, Babylon, as we have shown, was governed by a dynasty of princes whose names prove them to have been of Chaldaeo-Turanian, or rather of Elamite, origin. We have already related the sanguinary struggles between Karatadash, Burnaburyash, Karahardash, and Nazibugash, kings of Babylon, and the first Ninevite monarchs, Asshurbel-Nishishu, Bushur-Asshur, and Asshurubalat struggles occupying the greater part of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C.

Chaldtean dynasty,

EARLY HISTORY OF BABYLON.

111

469

13 14, Tiiklat-Samdan

I.

conquered the countries of the Lower

a dependency of Nineveh, settling there

Euphrates, and
a

made Babylon

new

line

of princes of Chaldaeo-Assyrian origin, and with purely

Semitic names.
kings of
its

Thus, even after this conquest, tlie city of Nimrod had own, although but vassals of the king of Assyria. Even

at this period,

when its glory was almost entirely eclipsed, it could vie with Nineveh both as to importance and population, and was in consequence a possession that gave its conquerors much trouble to keep.
Essentially a rebellious city, Babylon longed for independence, and at

each opportunity rose in revolt

during the six centuries of the Assyrian

empire we constantly

find its princes

warring against their suzerains.

of Tuklat-Samdan,

Even under Belkudurussur, the successor

invaded Assyria.

we have

seen that Binbaliddin, prince of Babylon, not only revolted, but even
It was this Binbaliddin who enclosed the city of Nipur with a wall called " Nivit Marduk " "the dwelling of Merodach." Towards the close of the twelfth century he was defeated, and again reduced to obedience by Adarpalashir, king of Nineveh. His successor, Nebuchadnezzar [Nabuchudurussur], also revolted against the Assyrian monarch, Asshurrishishi. Still more important was- the revolt of Mardukidinakhe (about the eleventh century B.C.) against TiglathHaving first defeated his suzerain, the pileser I. [Tuklat-pal-ashar]. Babylonian prince entered Assyria and sacked the town of Hekali. Some years after, he in his turn sustained a defeat, and Tiglath-pilser carried Babylon by storm. The monuments here fail us, and we therefore know northing of whiat passed in Babylon after the disasters of the Assyrian king, Asshurrabamar. It is probable that for a time the city threw off the Ninevite yoke, and that the first princes of the dynasty of Belkatirassu [or

Bilpasqu], perhaps

even

its

reconquer Baliylonia.

We

founder, made it their first occupation to have no documents on the subject of the
:

wars that brought about

punished
that, for

this result

all

we know

is,

that the success of

the Assyrians was complete, and the great Chaldosan city

was so severely

more than a centuiy,

it

did not again attempt to revolt.

Its princes

the Ninevite monarch.

during this period were in reality only hereditary satraps of know but one of these satraps, Irib Marduk,

We

whose name

is

found on some weights

in following the history of Assyria,

now in the British Museum. But, we have seen that Nabubaliddin,

king of Babylon, attempted a revolt, repressed almost before it broke out, against Asshumazirpal, and that disturbances in Babylon and Chaldsea broke out afre.sh with such violence under Shalmaneser IV.
(Shalmanuashir), that he found himself compelled to fortify strongly the frontier town of Ellasar, and to station a formidable garrison there, in
order to keep the country
in

check.

daninpal and the

civil

war that ensued, Chaldaea escaped

During the revolt of Asshurfrom its

470

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

its

northern masters and proclaimed

Mardiikbalatirib on the throne;

independence, placing a certain

his accession,
III.,

and Shamash-Bin, on

found himself obliged

at the

to

reconquer his rebellious vassal. Binlikhish

his successor, in order to assure himself the possession of Babylon, and

same time

to gratify the desire of its inhaliitants for independence,

married a princess of the native royal family, .Sammuramat, who was the nominal sovereign of Babylon whilst her husband reigned at

Nineveh.
2.

At

this period great

works were undertaken in the Chaldoean

city, especially

the construction of the

embankments of the Euphrates.

before said, the insurrection of the

Thirty-four years later Phul-Balazu, the Belesis of the Greeks, a

prince of Babylon, joined, as

we have

Mede Arbaces and

likhish, the

of the Susian Shutruknakhunta against Asshurin the

Sardanapalus of the Greeks, and took part

total

destruction of

Nineveh

(B.C. 788).

He had been,

of

all

the confederates,

the most determined, the one most obstinately bent on the ruin of the

Assyrian power.

On

the

fall

of Nineveh, the

Medes and Susians were

Phul, on

content with having merely reconquered their independence.

the contrary, took possession of Assyria

and of the western provinces of

the empire, and

this

time that

made them for a time subject to Babylon. It was at he made an expedition into the kingdom of Israel. About
II., a de-

747, doubtless immediately on the death of Phul-Balazu, Assyria threw

off the

yoke of her temporary conquerors; Tiglath-pileser

scendant of the old royal family, was proclaimed king, drove out the
provinces, Osrhoene and Syria.

Chaldeans, and re-established the authority of Nineveh over the western But the complete independence of the
lasted

kingdom of Babylon, the work of Phul,

the Assyrians ventured to attack
it.

some time longer before

Nabonassar, who succeeded Phul, in order to efface every trace of foreign

dominion, burnt
all

the historical documents of those kings of Nineveh

commence a new era, to be Nabonassar commences from his called by his accession in 747 B. c. and from this date the Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, has preserved a canon of the kings of Babylon, and his statements are fully confirmed by the monuments. Nevertheless, after Nabonassar, the kingdom of Babylon fell rapidly into decay; it was a prey to disorders of which we have but an imperfect knowledge. The canon of Ptolemy registers at this time four kings in twelve years, a sufficient indication of a time of troubles and revolutions. The kings of Assyria, who had become more powerful than ever, In profited by all this to claim again their ancient rights of suzerainty. 709 B.C. Sargon [Sharyukin], after the bloody battle of Dur-Yakin, reconquered Babylon and Chaldaea. From this date the history of the Babylonian state is known only
reigned over Babylon, and wished to

who had

own name.
,

The

era of

from

its relations,

almost always unfortunate, with the Assyrian empire,


NABOPOLASSAR.
and by
this
its

471
true national hero of

incessant and fruitless revolts.

The

epoch, the indomitable champion of the independence of Babylon, was Merodach Baladan [Mardukbaliddin], dethroned once by Sargon, then again on many occasions, in contest M'ith him and with his son,

Semiacherib [Sinakherib], unfailing in his hatred to the Assyrian yoke,

always conquered and always retrieving his

Babylonians, laying

disasters,

imprisoned by the
life.

kings of Assyria, and always escaping to put himself at the head of the

down

his

arms

at last only with his

Suzub,

son

of Gatul, was

equally intrepid

and persevering.

Esarhaddon

the fourth son of Sennacherib, was viceroy of Babylon under his father when he succeeded to the throne of Nineveh he habitually resided at Babylon, as we have already said, and it was to that city he carried prisoner Manasseh, king of Judah. Esarhaddon occupied himself in repairing the more important monuments of Babylon, much defaced and destroyed during the later wars, especially during the sack of the city, by order of Sennacherib in 683. He also designed the plan, and commenced the construction, of the two immense enclosures, the completion of which was the glory of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. After his abdication of the throne of Nineveh in favour of his son, Asshurbanipal, Esarhaddon still remained for a short time king of Babylon. At his death, his second son, Shamulshamugin, succeeded him in that city, but as vassal to Asshurbanipal. We have already given the details of his revolt, in which he was joined by Nabubelshum, the grandson of the great Merodach Baladan. But the two states were afterwards again united, and there was no king of Babylon, when, about 626, the Chaldrean Nabopolassar was made by

[Asshurakhiddin],

Asshuredililani

III.,

the last king but one

in

of Assyria, governor of

Chaldaea and Babylon,

barbarians

order to preserve the country from the

who

threatened

it.

Section
I.

II.

Nabopolassar [Nabupalussur].

625

604 b.c.

polassar.

power was NaboBabylon under his obscure predecessors had been subject to Nineveh. Now emerging at last from that state of dependence, she arrived at the highest point of power and grandeur. "For, lo," had said, some years before, the prophets in the name of Jehovah, menacing with divine judgments both Nineveh and the kingdom of Judah, " I raise up the Chaldaeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through
true founder of the Chaldseo-Babylonian

The

the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful their judgment and their
:

dignity shall proceed of themselves.

leopards, and are

more

fierce

Their horses also are swifter than than the evening wolves: and their horse-

472

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

shall spread themselves,
fly

men

and

their

horsemen

shall
i.

come from
6

far;

they shall

as an eagle that hasteth to eat " (Ilab.

had for twenty-two years deprived that proud city of the right of having a prince of its own, and had made it directly dependent on the throne of Nineveh Nabopolassar, who without doubt had played his part as courtier to the Assyrian monarch to obtain this favour, conceived at
for Asshuredililani

Sent to Babylon as satrap or prefect

8).

once the project of substituting himself for his master, and of freeing
for ever his native country.

lie sent an embassy to the king of the

to

Medes, who was beginning

military

establish a considerable

empire and a

power of the first rank, by the conquest of all those countries that had for many centuries formed the northern provinces of the Assyrian kingdom, penetrating even to Asia Minor. This king was Cyaxares, as we are told by Herodotus. Eusebius and Syncellus call him Astyages but this appellation seems to have been, among the Medes, a title or surname rather than a proper name. Nabopolassar concocted with him a plot for the overthrow of the Ninevite power; and to seal the alliance, married his own son, Nebuchadnezzar, or more correctly Nabukudurussur, as Berosus wrote it (Nebo protects my crown), to the daughter of the Median king. Before long the death of the king of Assyria furnished them the opportunity they were waited for,
;

to declare themselves independent.

Cyaxares advanced to lay siege to

Nineveh, and Nabopolassar, proclaiming himself king, sent large bodies

of troops to assist
2.

him

in the enterprise.

have already related how the Scythian invasion, pouring suddenly on Media, achieved for the moment its subjection, and saved for a time the capital of Assyria from destruction. Babylon and Chaldaea remained safe from the ravages of the Scythians. Nabopolassar

We

was more fortunate than his ally, for though obliged to postpone his scheme for the destruction of Nineveh, and to allow to what was now the mere shadow of the Assyrian kingdom a prolonged existence for nineteen
he remained in peaceable possession of his dominions, and by the delay to consolidate the independence he had achieved, establishing on a solid basis the power of the Babylonian kingdom. Profiting by the weakness and inaction of Assaracus, the last Ninevite king, he conquered the western or Aramtean portion of Mesopotamia that is to say, Osrhoene and reduced the descendant of Sargon and Sennacherib But he did not to the possession only of Assyria, properly so called. carry his arms beyond the Euphrates, avoiding, until the final fall of Nineveh, a contest with Necho, king of Egypt, who at that time, having vanquished Josiah, king of Judah, at Megiddo, had overrun the whole of Syria and seized his share of the spoils of the Assyrian empire. 3. Whilst he thus extended his territory, and gradually substituted the dominion of Babylon for that of Nineveh, Nabopolassar employed
years,
still

profited

NITOCRIS.
had

473

himself actively in restoring the ancient splendour of his capital, which

suffered

much

in the late wars,

and

in reconstructing

many

of the

public edifices that had fallen to ruin, notwithstanding the repairs of

calls Nitocris,

Nabopolassar had married a princess, whom Herodotus and whose name, purely Egyptian (Neith-aker " Neith, the Victorious "), seems to point her out as bom on the banks of the Nile, and belonging to the royal family, originally of Sais, then reigning over the land of the Pharaohs. Nitocris appears to have filled, in

Esarhaddon.

conjunction with her husband, Nabopolassar, a position in the state not less important than Sammuramat (the Semiramis of Herodotus) did

with regard to Binlikhish HI.

It

seems that she assumed the direction of

the gi-eat works then being executed at Babylon, for Herodotus, correctly

and well informed on

his
official

all

the history of the Chaldsean

kingdom

at that

period, attributes to her the credit of them, whilst

inscriptions ascribes
left
it

Nebuchadnezzar

in

to

his

father.

"Nitocris," says

Herodotus,* "not only

behind her, as memorials of her occupancy

of the throne, the works which I shall presently describe, but also,

observing the great power and restless enterprise of the Medes,

taken so large a number of

increase the defences of her

cities,

who had and among them Nineveh, and

made
all

expecting to be attacked in her turn,

empire.
city,

possible exertions to

And

first,

whereas the river

Euphrates, which traverses the

to Babylon,

ran formerly with a straight course

.she, by certain excavations which she made at some distance up the stream, rendered it so winding that it comes three several times in sight of the same village, a village in Assyria, which is called Ardericca and to this day they who would go from our sea to Babylon, on descending to the river, touch three times, and on three different days, at this very place. She also made an embankment along each side of the Euphrates, wonderful both for breadth and height, and dug
;

way above Babylon, close alongside the stream, which was sunk everywhere to the point where they came to the water, and was of such breadth that the whole circuit measured 420 furlongs. The soil dug out of this basin was made use of in the embankments along the waterside. When the excavation was finished she had stones brought, and bordered the entire margin of the reservoir with them. These two things were done the river made to wind and the lake excavated that the stream might be slacker by reason of the number of curves, and the voyage be rendered circuitous, and that, at the end of the voyage, it might be necessary to skirt the lake and so to make a long round. All these works were on that side of Babylon where the passes lay, and where the roads into Media were the straightest; and the aim of the queen in making them was to prevent the Medes
a basin for a lake a great

Her.

i.

185, 186.

"

474

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

itli

from holding intercourse w

ignorance of her
affairs.

tlie

Babylonians, and so to keep them in

"While

defence of the

the soil from the excavation was being thus used for the city, Nitocris engaged also in another undertaking, a

mere by-work compared with those we have already mentioned. The I said, was divided by the river into two distinct portions. Under the former kings, if a man wanted to pass from one of these divisions to the other, he had to cross in a boat, which must, it seems
city, as

to me, have been very troublesome. Accordingly, while she was digging the lake, Nitocris bethought herself of turning it to a use which should at once remove this inconvenience, and enable her to

monument of her reign over Babylon. She gave orders hewing of immense blocks of stone, and when they were ready, and the basin was excavated, she turned the entire stream of the Euphrates into the cutting, and thus for a time, while the basin was filling, the natural channel of the river was left dry. Forthwith she set to work, and in the first place lined the banks of the stream within the city with quays of burnt brick, and also bricked the landing-places opposite the river gates, adopting throughout the same fashion of brickwork which had been used in the town wall; after which, with the materials which had been prepared, she built, as near the middle of the town as possible, a stone bridge, the blocks whereof were bound together with iron and lead. In the daytime square wooden platforms were laid along from pier to pier, on which the inhabitants crossed the stream but at night they were withdrawn, to prevent people passing from side to side in the dark to commit robberiea When the river had filled the cutting, and the bridge was finished, the Euphrates was turned back again into its ancient bed and thus the basin, transformed suddenly into a lake, was seen to answer the purpose for which it was made, and the inhabitants, by help of the basin, obtained the advantage
leave another
for the
; ;

of a bridge.
4. In 607, Nabopolassar, feeling himself already old and enfeebled, and seeing also that a serious contest with the Egyptian monarchy had become imminent on account of the progress of Necho, who, master of

Syria, already threatened the Euphrates, thought fit to associate with himself on the throne a younger and more active prince. Nebuchadnezzar reigned conjointly with his father during the three succeeding
all

years, thus giving rise to a double

the

new

reign

method of computing the dates of some reckoning from this association, others from the

death of Nabopolassar.

The year 606 was the great epoch in the histoiy of the Chaldaean monarchy founded by Nabopolassar. From that year it became unquestionably the sovereign power of Asia, and acquired that supremacy in war and politics which had belonged first to Egypt, then to Assyria.

FALL OF NINEVEH.
result was due kingdom of Babylon The Medes having

475

This

to

two great wars waged simultaneously by the

both terminating in brilliant success. succeeded in freeing themselves from their
full

in this year,
at last

Scythian invaders, and in regaining their

independence and liberty

of action, Nabopolassar renewed his alliance with Cyaxares, and they

both again undertook the enterprise against Nineveh, which for nineteen This had become still years they had been compelled to postpone.

more easy, for the Assyrian monarchy had been growing gradually weaker from that time in the incapable and feeble hands of Assaracus, and had successively lost every one of its provinces. Nevertheless, at the last moment, when the united armies of the Babylonians and Medes
presented themselves under the ramparts of Nineveh, the ancient valour

of the Assyrians appeared to revive again.

last it

The

city resisted
it,

with
but at

vigour and obstinacy, a very long siege was required to reduce

was taken and completely destroyed with systematic ferocity. The Medes acquired the mountainous districts to the north and east, that is to say, the lesser part of the country. The king of Babylon joined to his states all the immense plains of the southern region bordering his own dominions, embracing at once the largest and most fertile parts of

The

conquerors divided the territory of Assyria.

Assyria.

Whilst he was himself occupied in the enterprise against Nineveh, Nabopolassar confided to his son the more difficult task the one requiring the most courage and activity the task of arresting the progress of Necho, who had already commenced the siege of Carchemish, with a

view of seizing the passage of the Euphrates, and re-commencing in Mesopotamia the conquering expeditions of Thothmes, Seti, and Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of the picked troops of the Ramses.
Chaldffian

army,

marched

against

the

Egyptians,

and

inflicted
'
'

on
the

them a crushing

defeat under the walls of Carchemish.

And

king of Egypt," says the Bible,

his land, for the king of

unto the river

(2

"came not again any more out of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt"

Kings xxiv. 7). Nebuchadnezzar pursued his adversary closely, as far as the frontier of Egypt; but having learned, whilst before Pelusium, that his father was dead (604), he retraced his steps, to take possession of a throne that, so recently established, might be shaken by a change of kings. Under these circumstances, says Berosus, the Babylonian historian, he put the affairs of Egypt, Syria, and the adjacent countries in order; and leaving in charge of his trusted generals the numerous prisoners he

had taken,

as well as the

command

of the garrisons

left

in the con-

quered provinces, he departed with a small escort, crossed the desert by forced marches, and thus arrived speedily at Babylon, where the chief of

476

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

death of Nabopolassar.

the caste of the Chaldoeans resigned into his liamls ihc government he
liad athninistcred since the

Section IIL

Nebuchadnezzar [Nabukudurussur]. 6oi 561 B.C.

I.

ruin of the
yet

Egypt had prepared the way for the kingdom of Judah, the only part of Palestine that had not submitted to tlie power of the Chaldsean monarchy, and had escaped
defeat of the king of

The

the consequences of the battle of Carchemish.

Two

years after the

of

death of his father had

left

him

in

full

possession

power

(602),

Nebuchadnezzar, once more in Syria, attacked Jehoiakim, king of Judah, imposed on him a tribute, and carried to Babylon numerous
hostages, with a part of the sacred vessels of the

Temple

of Jerusalem.

had not passed before the Hebrew prince again revolted, counting on the support of the king of Egypt (who in reality did nothing to assist him), and almost immediately died, leaving all the consequences of his rebellion to fall on the head of his son, Jehoiachin. Nebuchadnezzar sent an army Jehoiachin reigned but three months. against him, and soon himself arrived in Judrea ; and the young king of Judah was compelled to put himself and all his house into the hands of his enemy (599). Nebuchadnezzar did not content himself with these royal captives he entered Jerusalem, despoiled the Temple and palace of all their treasures, and made prisoners of the bravest
Three
years, however,
;

men
tated
.

of the

army

to

the

number of

10,000,

with a portion of the

(a

artisans,

amongst others the smiths and armourers

in
;

precaution dic-

by prudence,

order that the country should not be able again

to put itself into an effective state of defence)

he

left, in

short, in the

He carried also Jehoiachin, with city only the poorest of the people. mother, his wives and his eunuchs, to Babylon, and there shut up his
Judah closely in prison. Then, affecting to leave the nation a shadow of independence, he placed on the throne of Jerusalem, Zedekiah, uncle to the young prince. The new king, no less infatuated than his predecessors, remained deaf to the warnings of Jeremiah, who recommended to him a policy Having contrived of prudence and submission to the king of Babylon. to arrange a coalition with the king of Egypt and the Phoenician cities, he believed himself in a position to throw off the yoke, and broke into open rebellion, by refusing his tribute as a vassal {590). Nebuchadbut he was obliged nezzar, enraged, marched again on Jerusalem
the unfortunate king of
;

almost immediately to raise the siege, in order to offer battle to Pharaoh Uahprahet, who advanced to the relief of Zedekiah. The king of Egypt having retired without striking a blow, the

DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM,

477

Chaldtcans returned into Juda;a, took the cities of Lachish and Azekah, and again appeared before Jerusalem. During eighteen months the

Hebrews
into the

in their

capital repulsed all attacks, but famine

triumphed
a

over their endurance.

city,

The Chalda^ans penetrated through

breach

his .servants

whence the king attempted to escape with some of towards the Jordan; but he was taken in the plain of

Jericho and carried to the king of Babylon,

in

who

put his sons to death

his

presence, put out his eyes, and led him, loaded with chains,
(588).

guards of the Babylonian king, entered the

month afterwards Nebuzaradan, captain of the city, and at once the work of destruction commenced. The Temple of the Lord and the royal palace were burned, the high priest was killed, with sixty of the principal inhabitants, and all the families of the upper class who had not
to

Babylon

were led into captivity. Nebuchadnezzar had appointed a Hebrew, Gedaliah, governor of the but he, after the lapse of a few months, was assasterritory of Judah sinated by one of the royal family, named Ishmael. The chief men of the Jews who still remained in the country, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, retired to Egypt, where they hoped to find some security; but Uahprahet, by giving them an asylum, drew down on his own country the wrath of the Babylonian king. The eastern part of the Delta was invaded, and given over to the ravages of the Chaldsean
fled to the desert
;

army.

was not yet satisfied he aspired to its immense riches. For a long grand utterances of the prophets had announced to the time, too, the people of Tyre, now in the sixth century of their supremacy over the other cities, the misfortunes impending over them. "Behold," said Ezekiel, " I will bring on Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he
2.

The haughty king

of Babylon

the conquest of Phoenicia, coveting

shall

break down thy towers " (Ezekiel xxvi. 7 9). The Tyrians resisted for a long time, with the constancy and

obstinacy

they had already shown against Sargon, and the siege of their city

But at last Tyre was carried by assault, by the king of Babylon in person (574), who treated the Tyrians as he had the Jews, and carried into Chalda^a the most distinguished families of the country. The colonies Tyre then possessed on the northern coast of
lasted thirteen years.

Africa and in Spain, such as Carthage, not yet independent, and Gades

(now

Cadiz), recognised the suzerainty of the conqueror of their

mother

country.

From

this

originated

the

fabulous stories that

obtained

478
credence
at

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

a later time, that Nelnicliadnezzar marched at the head of

his legions as far as the

the glory of subjecting to his

taken,

columns of Hercules, and that attributed to him arms the Iberians of Spain.* Tyre once

Nabuchadnezzar, before returning to Babylon, attacked the people of Idumca, Moab, and Amnion, who had associated themselves with the last Jewish attempt at revolt, and compelled them to submission.

He made

also

campaign

in

Arabia, passed victoriously

through Hedjaz and Nedjid, and penetratetl as far as the Sabean kingdom of Yemen. These wars, predicted by the prophets, terminated

the series of Chaldcean conquests in Western Asia.

Once more in his own states, Nebuchadnezzar rendered himself no famous by his internal administration than by his foreign conquests. The fortune of war had placed at his disposal immense riches and innumerable captives he employed both in the great works of embel3.

less

which made Babylon the most celebrated on a broad plain,"says Herodotus,+ in the fifth century before the Christian era, "and is an who visited it exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so While such that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs. is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height. (The royal cubit is longer by three fingers' breadth
lishment and of public
city in the world.
utility,

"The

city stands

than the

common
here I

cubit.)

"

And

may

not omit to

tell

the use to which the

mould dug

out of the great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was

wrought.

As

fast as

they dug the moat the soil which they got firom
into bricks,

the cutting was

made

and when a

sufficient

number were

completed they baked the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building, and began with bricking the borders of the moat ; after which they proceeded to construct the wall itself, using throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth
course of the bricks.

On

the top, along the edges of the wall, they

constructed buildings of a single chamber, facing one another, leaving

between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and sideposts. The bitumen used in the work was brought to Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates at the point where the city of the same name stands, eight days' journey from Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found in great abundance in this river.
* Strabo, XV. Evang. ix. p. 456.
p.

687; Joseph., Ant.

authority for
all

The

x. 11, i; Euseb., Prcepar. these passages is the historian

Megasthenes.

t Her.

i.

178, 179, 180, 181.


WALLS OF BABYLON.
" The city is divided
the midst of
it.

479

into

two portions by the

is

river,

which runs through

the Erythraean

This river

the

Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift

itself into

stream which
sea.

rises in

Armenia and empties

brought down on both sides to the edge of the stream: thence from the corners of the wall there is carried along each
city wall is

The

bank of the
and four

river a fence of burnt bricks.

The houses

are mostly three

stories

high

the streets

all

run in straight

lines,

not only those

parallel to the river, but also the cross streets

which lead down to the

water-side.

At

the river end of these cross streets are low gates in the

fence that skirts the stream, which are, like the great gates in the outer
wall, of brass,

and open on the water. " The outer wall is the main defence of the
less thickness

city.
first,

There is, however, a

but very
little inferior

second inner wall, of

to
it

than the

in strength.
fortress.

The

centre of each division of the town

by a

In the one stood the palace of the kings,

:

was occupied sun-ounded by

a wall of great strength and size

in the other

was the sacred precinct

time."

of Jupiter Belus, a square enclosure, two furlongs each Avay, with gates of solid brass, which was also remaining in

my

The

great wall of Babylon, following the measures of

M. Oppert who

has completely elucidated the questions relative to the topography of the great Chaldfean city, enclosed a space of 5 1 3 square kilometres
that
is

a territory as large as the department of the Seine, fifteen times

the extent of Paris in 1859, seven times of Paris at present. and smaller wall enclosed a space of 290 square kilometres

The

inner

much larger
by the

than the city of London.

But these walls v/ere

than
inner, and.

less the

ramparts of a

city,

properly so called,

an immense entrenched camp.

The

territory enclosed
far

much more

the

outer, wall

was

from being entirely

Quintus Curtius mentions ninety stades as the extent of ground covered with houses: the remainder was under cultivation and was sufficient to supply the defenders for a long time with the means of
inhabited.

avoiding famine, while at the same time the immense extent of the outer wall precluded the possibility of an investment. Aristotle,

wishing to give an idea of a city such as he imagined

not by walls alone that a city
is

it,

says,

"

It is

made;

if

enclose the Peloponnesus with a wall.

would only have to That would be the same as

so one

Babylon, or any other place whose circuit encloses rather a nation than a city."
4. We have previously noticed the large works carried out at Babylon under Binlikhish III. and Sammuramat, and later under Nabopolassar and Nitocris. Nebuchadnezzar surpassed all the works of his predecessors under his reign Babylon became the first city in the world. He
;

almost entirely rebuilt the " royal city," situated on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where had been the first germ of Babylon in the time of

4So

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

A new
;

the Cushitc kings.

palace was constructed there by his orders,

conceived

in

the most gigantic proportions, and far

more magnificent

tumuhis called on the site of Babylon. He says of it, in the great inscription preserved in London, " Nabopolassar, king of ISabylon, my father, had commenced the building of He had the palace with bricks, and had ereclcfl an altar in the centre.
than
the old one

we

recognise

its

position
ruins

in

tlie

"Kasr," one of the most considerable

sunk

its

foundations deep in the waters.

I

I laid
T

the sub-structure with

brick.

laid

on

it

the foundation stone.

built as

high as the level of

I

the waters, and

constructed
it

there I firmly fixed the foundation of the palace.

of bitumen and bricks.

For

its

timber work I employed

great beams, cedar wood, cased with iron.

bricks,

forming inscriptions and pictures,

I

employed in it enamelled and enamelled brick also

I

framed the doors.

collected there gold, silver, metals, precious stones

of every kind and value, a collection of valuable objects and immense In treasures. I established there a valiant cohort, a royal garrison."
the vast enclosure of this palace, and on the very border of the river,

Nebuchadnezzar caused
gardens," a sort of

to

artificial

be raised and planted the famous " Hanging mountain, to recall to the mind of his queen,

Amytis

a Median by birth the picturesque aspect of her own country.

Lake Maggiore.

succession of terraces rose in stages one above the other, like those of

Isola Bella on

An enormous

sub-structure supported

the whole, and vast subterranean chambers were made under each The site of this construction, universally admired cultivated terrace.

by the ancients, has been recognised by M. Oppert in the tumulus, called " Amram." In the royal city there was the building designated by the
inscriptions themselves as the

most ancient of the city, properly called Babylon, the pyramid in stages, called " the temple of the foundations of the earth, " or rather " Val Saggatu," in Chaldoeo-Turanian "Temple
of the lofty head."
of the god Bel Merodach,

The Chaldsean priests pretended to show the tomb who had there his famous oracle. This
it.

pyramid, the work of the Cushite dynasty, had fallen into ruin from old
age
;

Nebuchadnezzar repaired and partly reconstructed

is

" Val
I
it

Saggatu," says he, in an inscription, "

earth, the dwelling of

the great temple of heaven and

Merodach, the master of the gods.

its

have
with

restored

its

sanctuary, the place of repose of the deity, plating

pure gold."
of

The

pyramid of Babylon contained at

the sepulchral
his oracle; lastly, at

base a sanctuary

Nebo; half way up was

'

where they consulted

called
'

chamber of Bel Merodach, the top was another sanctuary,

the mystic sanctuary of Merodach. "

The distinction of these three

parts

is

indispensable to the right understanding of the circumstantial

details

which Nebuchadnezzar gives in his "standard inscription," of the "I undertook in Val Saggatu the restoration I gave to the cupola the form of a lily. of the chamber of Merodach.
restoration of the pyramid:

BUILDINGS AT BABYLON.
and
high
the
I

481

covered
hill,

it

with chased gold, so that

fates

where

Altar of Destinies.

it shone as the day. On the were foretold outside the town, was erected the It was erected in Val Saggatu during the feasts of

new

year.

This altar

sublime master of the gods

I covered
it

by a former king employed for the woodwork of the chamber of oracles the largest of the trees I had caused to be transported from the summit of Lebanon. I covered with pure gold the enormous beams of cypress, employed for the woodwork of the chamber of oracles ; the lower portion of the woodwork I incrusted with gold, silver, other metals and gems. I had the vault of the mystic sanctuary of Merodach incrusted with glass and gems, so as The wonder of Babylon, I to represent the firmament with the stars. it is this temple of the base of heaven and rebuilt and restored it earth whose summit I raised of bricks, and covered it externally with a
in silver
I

altar had

of the sovereignty of Merodach, the

been made

with pure gold of immense weight.

cornice of copper."
5.

Whilst these works were being executed

in the royal city, the part

site is

of Babylon, called Hillat, or "the profane city," whose

occupied by

the present town of Hillah, was more than doubled in size by the

numerous colonies of
ihe

captives,

whom

the

conquering monarch had

his arms.
It is there that district

brought from all the countries subdued

by

Hebrews from Jerusalem and established. They had the privilege,

communities of
exiles, of

the
in

neighbouring

were

having their

common no doubt with other own national judges; thus proving

kingdom of Babylon,
at

that in the system of government of the that of Merovingian Gaul,

as in

and of Turkey

present, the

law was

personal not

territorial.

They enjoyed
Ezekiel

there also complete liberty of

to

religious worship,

for

was able

discharge

among them,
Babylon that

without hindrance, his prophetic mission, though he publicly announced

the short duration of the Chaldaean power.
It

was

at

certain of the Psalms were written for use in religious worship, such as that beautiful one, " By the rivers of Babylon " (Ps. cxxxvii.), in which

Divine vengeance was invoked for the chastisement of the oppressors of Some of the Jews were advanced to very elevated posts in the Israel.
administration, and that without ceasing to profess their
in the case of Daniel,

own

faith, as
It

who was one

of the king's ministers.

was

necessary only, on entering on public functions, to take a Babylonian

name as the mark of a sort of naturalisation. The walls of the enceinte of Babylon, commenced by Esarhaddon,
were completed by Nebuchadnezzar, and commemorative inscriptions have been recently found, engraven in order to transmit to posterity the remembrance of that gigantic work. The exact agreement of the statements they furnish with the descriptions of Herodotus, which we have
already quoted,
is

remarkable.
I I

482

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Nivit-bel, the great walls of Babylon, T built

" Imgur-bel and

square

them

...

repaired, with bitumen

I

ditches that had been dug.

caused to

and bricks, the sides of the be put in order the double doors

of bronze, and the railings, and gratings in the great gateways. I enlarged the streets of Babylon so as to make them wonderful. I applied myself
to the protection of Babylon and Val Saggatu (the pyramid), and on the most elevated lands, close to the great gate of Ishtar, I constructed strong fortresses of bitumen and bricks, from the bank of the Euphrates

down
'

to the great gate, the

whole extent of the

level of the waters.

streets.

I established

their foundations

below the

I fortified these

walls

with
that

caused Imgur-bel, the great wall of Babylon, the impregnable, such as no king before me had made, to be measured, 4,000 mahargagar
art.

is

the extent of Babylon."

This measurement corresponds exactly

circuit.

with the 480 stades given by Herodotus as the

6.

construction of these walls had the effect of reuniting to the city of Babylon, properly so called, in one enclosure, the original Babel, anterior even to Nimrod, the city that had seen the confusion of tongues,

The

and

to

situated at

which the tradition of that event was still attached Borsippa some distance on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and up
It

to that time a separate city.

was there

that as a

of

Babel existing from time immemorial

he restored the Tower mass of rubbish and

established the great temple of Bel, called by the Babylonians " Valzida," a Chaldaso-Turanian word, with a meaning as yet unknown to us, and " the Tower of the seven celestial spheres."

have given in our First Book the most striking passages of the inscription found in the ruins of the edifice, in which Nebuchadnezzar describes this restoration and quotes, for the origin of the monument,
the

We

a tradition exactly agreeing with that of the Bible. Herodotus, who saw Temple of Bel in the state in which it was left by the great Chaldaean conqueror, describes it in these words:" It was a square enclosure, two
In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of
solid masonry, a stade in length

stades each way.

and breadth, upon which was raised a

second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight." The basement was 75 feet high, and each of the stages 25, so that the whole structure was 250 feet in height. Excavations made by Sir H. Rawlinson enable us to state that the seven stages crowned by the sanctuary of
the god had, like those of the Zikurat of the Assyrian palace at Khorsabad, facings of the colours of the seven planets, but differently arranged,
that
is to say, beginning from the bottom, black (Saturn), white (Venus), purple (Jupiter), blue (Mercury), vermilion (Mars), silver (the Moon), and gold (the Sun). Reckoning from the top, this is the order of the

days of the week.

" On

the topmost tower there

is

a spacious temple,

and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kmd set up

TEMPLE AT BORSIPPA.
in the place,

483

nor

is

the chamber occupied at night by anyone but a

single native
affirm, is

woman, who,

chosen
.

for himself

land

Below, in

Chaldeans, the priests of this god, by the deity out of all the women of the the same precinct, there is a second temple, in
as the

which is a sitting figure of Jupiter, all of gold. Before the figure stands a large golden table, and the throne whereon it sits, and the base on which the throne is placed, are likewise of gold. The Chaldseans told me that all the gold together was eight hundred talents' weight. Outside the temple are two altars, one of solid gold, on which it is only lawful to offer sucklings; the other a common altar, but of great size, on which the full-grown animals are sacrificed. It is also on the great altar that the Chaldasans burn the frankincense, which is offered to the amount of
a thousand
talents'

weight every year at the

festival of the

god."*

All these particulars are confirmed by the Apocryphal

Book

ot

Daniel ("Bel and the Dragon," vv. 3 and 23, scq.), containing more interesting details of the worship of Bel in that sanctuary, of which the

Tower of Babel, the most venerable monument in the world, had furnished the nucleus. According to the sacred writer, seventy priests were attached to the service of the temple, and each day they offered to the god twelve large measures of the purest wheat-flour, forty sheep and six large vessels of wine ; there was also in this temple, probably in the lower sanctuary, a great serpent, adored by the Babylonians as the living image of Bel, and said to have been killed by
ancient

Daniel before the eyes of the king.

exalt the god.

" Borsippa," says the London inscription, " is the town of those who I ornamented it. In the centre I caused to be conits

structed Val-zida, the eternal house; I completed

magnificence with

gold, silver, other metals, stones, enamelled bricks, timber

work of

sea-

pine and cedar.

covered with gold the

woodwork
sill

of the place of

repose of the god Nebo.

been plated with

place of repose
I

silver.

The The

cross pieces of the door of oracles

have

uprights, the
I

and the

lintel,

of the

encrusted with ivory.

encrusted with silver the

I

uprights in cedar of the door of the women's chamber.

built the

entrance to the place of repose and the square portico of the temple
magnificently with bricks of various colours.
solidly.
I

constructed the temple

To

astonish mankind, I reconstructed and renewed the

wonder
I raised

of Borsippa, the temple of the seven spheres of the world,

the top of bricks, and covered

of the

it with copper. I inlaid the sanctuary bands of marble and other stones. At Borsippa, in the body of masonry forming the base of Val-zida, I made a temple in the form of a cavern, in honour of Sin, who sustains my authority, the sanctuary of Cannes." In the inscription found amongst the ruins of the tower there are

god with

alternate

Her.
I

i.
I

181, 182. 2

484

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

witli

some details of the construction agreeing some fresh ones. " I did not change the site or alter the

tliosc

quotecl,

and also

foundations.

In a fortunate

month, on an auspicious day, I pierced through with vaults the crude I brick of the body of masonry, and the baked brick of the casing. I inscribed my name on the frieze of the adjusted the circular inclines. terraces. I set my hand to reconstruct Val-zida, and to raise its head as times. I reconstructed and rebuilt it as it was in it was in ancient
I raised its summit." former times. Lastly, another inscription repeats the same information, but adds this detail, not found elsewhere, that the goddess Nana was supposed

to

upper sanctuary of the tower. The cuneiform inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar also give us valuable
in tlie

be residing with the god

details of the interior administration of this sovereign, of the spoils torn

from conquered peoples, and employed in the construction of all those They enumerate the ancient edifices, the pride of the Chaldaean city. temples he restored and the new ones he built, not only at Babylon and Borsippa, but at Cutha and numerous other towns of Chaldsea; for they

had

all

suffered

enormously under the

later

Assyrian kings,
all

who had
rose from

severely repressed their attempts at independence, and they

their ruins at the

same time

as the capital

We
"I

will first relate the details given

on

under Nebuchadnezzar. this subject by the London

(Bilit

inscription.
built
at

Babylon, in honour of the sublime sovereign

Zarpanit), the mother

siim7nit of the iiunuitaiiis,

bore me, which is the heart of Babylon." Considerable ruins of this temple are found at a place called El Amongst them has been found a dedicatory Kolaiah, near Hillah. inscription bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar. " I caused to be built in Babylon, of bitumen and bricks, according to the rules of art, a temple in honour of the god Nebo, the supreme regent who bestows the sceptre of justice to govern the legions of men.
the temple of the goddess oj the

who

The temple of him who confers the sceptre." " I built in Babylon, to the god Sin, who
the temple of the great light, his house."

inspires

me

with judgment,

bitumen and bricks, a temple in honour of the god Shamash, who inspires my body with the sentiment of justice, This edifice occupied the site, in the temple of the Judge of the 'world.'" the town of Hillah, now filled by a mosque, still called "Mosque of

"I

built in Babylon, of

the Sun."

"
and

I built, in the

bricks, in

form of a square, a temple at Babylon, of bitumen honour of the god Bin, who showers down abundance on
bricks, a vast

my

country, the te7nple of the dispenser of storms.''''

built at

"I

Babylon temples of bitumen and

body of

TEMPLES BUILT BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

masonry, in honour of the great goddess (Nana),
sustains

485

who

rejoices

and

my

soul.

The

tetnple

of the depths

and

the temple of the high

tnountainsy

"

I built at the entrance of the wall of

Babylon a temple

in the

form

of a square, in honour of the sovereign of the house of heaven, the

queen who has pity on me, the temple of Kikupan.^'' " I built at Borsippa a temple to the god Adar Samdan, who breaks the arms of my enemies." " I built at Borsippa, in honour of the great goddess (Nana), who accepts my song, the great temple, the teinple of life, and the temple of the living soul, its three wonders." These three temples, alluding to the lunar attributes of the goddess Nana, and to the phases of the planet new, full, and waning moon were all one body of masonry. The ruins form what is now called the Tel Ibrahim el Khalil, near Nimrud. " I constructed at Borsippa, in masomy, the temple of the god Bin, who causes the prophetic thunder to sound in my country."

The details in this inscription refer also to other sacred edifices. " The 8th of the month Ulul I consecrated the portico of the god
Nergal and of the god Nibkhaz, the gods of the temple Valpitlam at I accomplished the oracle of the great god Cutha. I added a new portico to that of the fa9ade." Cutha to the north of Babylon had, like Borsippa, been included in the immense circuit of the exterior wall. The special god of this town was Nergal, and we learn from some
;

mythological details given in the tablets of the library'of Asshurbanipal,

that he

was worshipped there under the form of a lion. founded and constructed the temple of the day honour of Shamash and Sin, my lords." "
I

at Sippara, in

"
of

founded and constructed at

^3irs3.m. the

temple of the day, in honour

Shamash and Sin, my lords." " I founded and built the temple

at

Ur, in honour of the god

at Nipur, in

Sin, the master

who

exalts

my

royalty."

" "

founded and

built the

temple Ikul
in the

Ann

honour of

the god Oannes,

I

my

master."

founded and constructed

town of Ras

the temple of eternal

adoration, in honour of the

god Bel

Zarbi,

my

lord."

At Babylon
polassar,

itself this prince, as

pleted the quays of the Euphrates,

and his mother, Nitocris. embellishing " the city of his royalty," as he calls and the other
cities suliject to his sceptre,

we learn from his inscriptions, comcommenced by his father, NaboNot content with ornamenting and
it

in his

monuments,

he was solicitous also for the fertility of Babylonia and the extension of its commerce. He repaired and put into working order the famous royal canal, or Naharmalcha, constructed 1,300 years before by the king, Hammurabi, but from lapse

4S6
of time so

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

much
obstructed
tliat

these repairs were consideretl by the

historians as, in truth, a

to

He caused an immense lake be dug below Sippara, to serve as a reservoir for watering the plain,
new
construction.
finally

and

he secured the navigation of the Persian gulf

Ijy

establishing

a large port at the mouth of the river at Teredon, called by the Babylonians in their
8.

niin,

own language Kar Dunyash. Nebuchadnezzar was then, in truth, a great king ; but pride was his and led him to madness, as it has done other men of great genius,

ecjually infatuated with their

own

success.

Already,

in

the inscription

commemorative of the restoration of the tower of Babel, he had said Merodach, the great lord, has begotten me himself. " A little later, when all his great works were accomplished, he thought himself a god, and willed that everyone should fall prostrate before a statue of himself, which he caused to be made of gold. Three Hebrews resisted him, and witnessing the miracle by which God preserved them from the
' '

flames, the

God

of Israel.
in

king of Babylon, says the Bible, rendered homage to the But his pride was not abated, and one day while he king spake and
said,

walked

his palace, the

I

"Is not

this great

house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ? Then a voice from heaven said to him, O Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken ; The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field and they shall
Babylon, that

have

built for the

make
giveth

thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee,

until thou
it

know

to

that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and whomsoever he will " (Dan. iv. 30, secj.). This decree was at

once accomplished

madness,

fled

like them, to

Nebuchadnezzar, struck with the most abject from the society of men, and, imitating the beasts, tried, eat grass ; his person, deprived of all care, and exposed to
;

the inclemencies of weather, exhibited

all

the effects of this neglect.

origin

personage,

named

Bellabarisruk, of

whose

we know

nothing,

and whose son was son-in-law to the king in all probability the ArchiMagus, or chief of the Chaldsean caste possessed himself of power, possibly as regent of the empire during the incapacity of the sovereign. An inscription shows, however, that he took the title of king, and thus consummated a real and complete usurpation. It was not until after the lapse of seven months that Nebuchadnezzar became himself again, and was able to reassume the exercise of power. A short time after this he died, having reigned forty-three years, predicting, says Berosus, the ruin of the Babylonian empire.

Note. The Jewish historian, Josephus, has misinterpreted the words of the Bible, and enormously exaggerated the time of Nebuchadnezzar's
madness, prolonging
it

to seven years.

Ani. X.

6.

SUCCESSORS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
Section IV.

487

Successors of Nebuchadnezzar Fall of THE Babylonian Empire. 561 533 b.c.

rec[uire a supernatural gift of

The

1.

It did not

prophecy

to foresee that

the Babylonian empire, arrived at such a high degree of splendour,

was very near its fall, and that its power would take no longer time to crumble away than had been required to build it up: for this no more was requisite than a clear and prescient mind. This empire had, in truth, in itself no one real element of duration. The colossus, as in the vision explained by Daniel, had feet of clay. The Babylonian sufficiently military in character, nation was not sufficiently energetic, or to be able to maintain, as the Assyrians had done during many centuries, its dominion over a hundred different races. Its whole warlike force consisted of hordes of cavalry from the tribes of Irak Arabi and hordes admirably fitted to overrun, with the people of Lower Chaldaea

the impetuosity of a torrent that has burst

its

banks, a large extent of

country in a very short time, but not to preserve their conquests and

found a lasting dominion.

It

may

generally be observed in history that those people whose

to preserve

military strength consists entirely of cavalry are capable indeed of great

and rapid conquests, but are never able

of time.

them

for

any length

From the very moment of the death of Nebuchadnezzar, disquieting rumours began to prevail at Babylon. It was said that anew dominant power had appeared in the world. Already the kingdom of the Medes had fallen before this people, but lately its subjects; the Persians, for so were these new conquerors called, had sallied from their rugged mountains under the guidance of a young chief, whom the events of the war had already raised to the rank of a great captain. The prophets of Israel, too, announced with startling voice that proud Babylon must ere long herself feel the miseries she had inflicted on Jerusalem. "Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldceans for thou Take the millstones, and shalt be no more called tender and delicate. uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, grind meal
: :
:

pass over the rivers.

Thy nakedness
(Isa. .\lvii.
i

shall

be uncovered, yea, thy

shame
2.

shall

be seen"

3).
;

prince

Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son, Evil-Merodach this is distinguished in sacred history by an act of humanity (2 Kings XXV. 27). At the commencement of his reign he " lifted up the head " of Jehoiakin, king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison, where for thirty-seven years he had been left in fetters; gave him a rank above the other captive kings who were at the capital; admitted him to But the rest of his reign did his table, and assigned him a pension.

488
not
fulfil tlic

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST,

as having trami)le(l
laid against him,

him was

promise of so honourable an action. Berosus represents under foot every law and all propriety. A plot

and he was assassinated by

his brother-in law,

the son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar, and the son of the Bellabarisruk

who had
,

usurped power during the madness of the great Chaldsean conqueror (559), who was named A^ergalsarussur (Nergal protects the king), a name altered in the fragments of Berosus to Neriglissar. Evil-

Merodach had reigned but two

years.

This domestic tragedy gave to

Neriglissar a sceptre that he held without dignity, and did not long retain.

The

son-in-law of the conqueror of Jerusalem built himself a

city,

new

palace outside the royal

on the western bank of the Euphrates,

silver in the various sanctuaries of the

and placed statues of massive pyramid of the tomb of Bel.

life in

He

reigned only four years, and lost his

a great battle against the Persians under Cyrus, the conquerors of Media, of which country, formerly subject to the kings of Assyria, he
called Laborosoarchod in

desired to dispute their possession (555). 3. The son and successor of this prince

is

the fragments of Berosus

it

is

probable that he was in reality called

Bellabarisruk, after his grandfather.

He

was a

child,

and occupied the

throne only a few months.

The

chiefs of the

Chaldsean caste dethroned

him, indignant

at the vicious

and cruel

instincts

he displayed, young as

he was.

They then proclaimed one

is

of their number,

named Nabonahid
son of a certain
seventeen years of

(Nebo

majestic),

the Labynetus of Herodotus,

Nabobalatirrib (555). the Babylonian empire.

royal
city.

He

reigned during the

itself

last

At Babylon

he repaired the quays of the

curious inscription of the last year of his reign, dis-

Ur by the English traveller, Loftus, shows him to us, saying culpa" for having neglected the worship of the gods, and undertaking to repair the temple of Sin, in order to obtain the protection of that god. The terms employed are sufficiently curious to warrant our repeating them here "Although I myself, Nabonahid, king of Babylon, have long sinned
covered
at

his

"mea

against the great divinity,

yet save me,

grant

me

a long existence,
to.

reaching even to the most advanced age that

since I have Belsharussur, the scion of

man

can attain

And
be

my

heart,

my

eldest son, propa-

gate on his account the worship of thy great divinity.

May

his life

preserved from harm, so long as the destinies permit."

Everything points out

the year of the date of

threatened with a great and pressing danger.

already

work of a prince so it was for in the Ur monument (538), Cyrus, who had
this

inscription

as

the

And

made himself master of all the rest of Asia, advanced against him at the head of the Medes and Persians, with the declared resolution
of adding Chaldasa to his dominions.

Nabonahid advanced

to

meet Cyrus, but sustained a complete defeat;

CYRUS TAKES BABYLON.

and, followed by a small
sippa, whilst

489

number

of soldiers, threw himself into Bor-

Cyrus

laid siege to

Babylon.
last

We gather

from

this fact,
feel

reported

by Berosus, that the

Chaldasan monarch did not

first

himself able to defend effectively the immense extent of the

Borsippa, and that he allowed
to

great

wall erected by Nebuchadnezzar, including both Babylon proper and

it

be forced by the Persian army

city,

without opposition.
easily

Babylon, protected by the second wall, and by

the impregnable citadel forming the royal

;

was not

to

be reduced
its

provided with food for

many

years' consumption,

inhabit-

ants disdained a besieger not so well supplied as themselves.

But the

time fixed by Providence for the chastisement of the Chaldaean city had
arrived.

Cyrus,

who

very recently had, by digging canals, exhausted

resolved to adopt the same

the Gyndes, an affluent of the Tigris,

measures, and to enter Babylon by the bed of the Euphrates; he

opened the

sluices serving to

divert the waters of the river into the

artificial lake,

dug by

Nitocris,

and

his troops, going

down
city,

into

the

Euphrates, with water to their knees only, entered the

or rather

between

as in a net,

two parts. The inhabitants might then have taken them by shutting on them the bronze gates of the quays, and have crushed them from the height of their walls. But they were then engaged in celebrating a feast, and, drowned in revelry and carelessness,
its

they permitted the enemy to obtain

city before the

full

occupation of the centre of the

were even informed of the attack. Thus were fulfilled the prophecies announcing the drying up of the river of Babylon the orgies of the warriors and priests ending in the sleep of death; its gates set open before the ministers of divine justice; and Cyrus (named by Isaiah, Ilezekiah's contemporary) taking possession of that proud city, whose capture Jeremiah had described at the period of its highest power. Nabonahid, when he retired to Borsippa, had left in Babylon his son Belsharussur (Bel protects the king), the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel,* who had been associated with himself in the government.
distant quarters
;

more

* In the Books of Baruch and of Daniel, Belshazzar is called "son of Nebuchadnezzar" (Baruch i. 1 1 ; Daniel v. 18), and this, until his name was found in the inscriptions, gave much trouble to all comHere, however, the word "son " is used in its general and mentators. poetical sense of successor, just as we have seen on the Nimrud obelisk Jehu called the " son of Omri." It must, however, be borne in mind, in considering the historical facts contained in tlie ]3ook of Daniel, that admitting the book to be perfectly authentic, and unquestionably written at Babylon, we no longer possess the whole of the original text, but merely the results of the re-arrangement and partial re-writing in Syro-Chaldee about the third century li.c. and this by transcribers ignorant of history, who have fallen into several manifest errors as to the names of Babylonian kings.
;

490
It is

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

oa that festal night, when the Persians surprised Babylon, that we must place the scene of Belshazzar's feast, related in such thrilling terms in the Book of Daniel. The son of Nahonahid has profaned in
his orgie

the sacred vessels of the

Temple of Jerusalem

a terrible

Mene, Tekel, Peres announces to him the destined chastisement of Providence and so that very niglit he was killed by Darius the Mede, one of the generals of Cyrus, who having been charged by that prince with the nocturnal expedition, was rewarded for his success by the government

sign

fingers writing on the wall

the three famous words,

of Babylon.*

Nabonahid escaped

the unfortunate end of

liis

son

he did not await

have lasted long, and surrendered to Cyrus, who sent him into Carmania, where he ended his days. From tliat time the kingdom of Babylon ceased to exist, though
in Borsippa a siege, that in all probability would not

was slowly and gradually accomplished. Babylon continued, under the Persian kings, to be one of the capitals of their empire. Many times the proud city attempted again to raise its head, for it did not resign itself easily to the loss of independence but their revolts served only to draw down on the inhabitants the vengeance of the conquerors. During the troubles following the death of Cambyses (522), a certain Nidintabcl proclaimed himself king there, giving himself out as Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonahid. A Greek cameo in the Museum at Berlin, of archaic workmanship, carried to Babylon in the course of commerce, was dedicated by this Nebuchadnezzar to one of his gods, as is proved by the cuneiform inscription engraved round it. Four years later (518), Darius, son of Hystaspes, could only take Babylon after a siege of twenty months, and by help of the treason of Zopyrus. The following year saw a new insurrection, soon put down, by a man called Arakhu, who also passed himself off as son of Nabonahid. The Babylonians did not take the trouble to examine into the pretensions of these impostors it was enough that
the ruin of the city
;

they proclaimed independence, and called the people to arms against

the Persians.

In 508, a

new

insurrection

was more

successful than the

has been, like that of Belshazzar, is no possible theory that has not been started on this subject, because we read in the Bible that he became king on the death of Belshazzar. "And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, " a phrase that may be equally well applied to the At any rate, if investiture of a satrap as to the accession of a king. we must absolutely maintain the sense this phrase has hitherto received, Darius the Mede can have been no other than Darius, son of Hystaspes, whose name the author of the re-arrangement has substituted for that of Cyrus, as the former was much better known in the third cen-

* The name of Darius the a veritable crux interprcUim.

Mede

There

'

'

tury B.C.

RUIN OF BABYLON.
preceding;
interval.
it

491

freed

Babylon and
Persian

all

Chald;T;a for twenty years from the

are found there in that long But Darius subdued it at last in 488; and to render any future revolt of Babylon impossible, he overturned its towers, its walls, and its immense fortifications. Xerxes, some years after, continued the

Persian yoke.

No

monuments

work of

his father,

and regularly pillaged the

the treasures of the

city,

carrying off the

golden statue of

Nebo and

tomb of Bel Merodach.

Alexander, the conqueror of the Persians, adopted another policy. Struck with the beauty and the advantages of the situation of Babylon,

he wished

to

make

it

rise

from

its

ruins

but that great

man died

before

he was able

to carry out his plans.

The

Seleucidse vv'ished to have a capital built

the)'

bearing their name;

by themselves, and founded Seleucia on the banks of the Tigris,

to those

and the privileges given

inhabitants.

general desertion of Babylon.

who came to settle there led to a The new capital numbered 600,000
not outlast the time of these the Parthians

This

state of prosperity diil

new

masters of the East.

When
new

had

seized the empire

of Asia, they did to

Seleucia what Seleucus

city,

Nicator had done to

its

Babylon, they founded a

existing.

Ctesiphon; this in

turn

was
still

superseded by the Arab city of Bagdad, the capital of the Caliphs,

Bagdad,

grandeur, in spite

in would equal her elder of Hulagu and Tamerlane, if the commerce of the

the

youngest,

sisters

world had not found out other channels. In the time of Pliny Babylon was already a desert. At the present day there remains of the immense city nothingbut huge masses of rubbish and an inexhaustible magazine of materials, whence the inhabitants of the neighbourhood constantly take what they require above all, excellent and perfectly moulded burnt bricks, slabs of marble, and glazed tiles. The hills of rubbish, marking the sites of the principal edifices, palaces, hanging gardens, the Pyramid of Bel, the Tower of Tongues, furnish dens for the wild beasts of the desert. Thus is accomplished to the " Behold, I will stir up the Medes letter the prophecy of Isaiah
;
:

and as for gold, they shall Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces not and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb their eye shall not
;

against them, which shall not regard silver

delight in
it.

spare children.

And

Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of

when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation neither shall the Arabian pitch tent neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. there But the wild beasts of the deserts shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance
the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as
:

there.

And

the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate

xiii.

houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (Isa.

1722).


492

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

CHAPTER VI. MANNERS AND RELIGION OF BABYLON.

Section
1.
I.

Manners.

Nineveh and of Bal)ylon w^ere one and the same. Between Assyria and Chalda^a there was complete confcjrmity in all things fundamental and essential. What we have already said in the preceding chapter, on the manners, customs, and religion of the
civilisation of

The

Assyrians, will be equally applicable here

selves to

some

civifisation

and we may confine ourand of the two great Mesopotamian people separated, and took
;

short remarks on a few points where the genius

each

its

own

peculiar aspect.

Babylonians, according to the testimony of Herodotus,* and the representations on the cylinders, was a linen tunic reaching to the feet over this they wore another tunic of wool, and over that again a short white cloak. They wore the hair carefully curled, and on the head high-pointed tiaras. The soldiers wore conical
;

The

clothing of the

helmets, like those of the Assyrians, breastplates of quilted linen, and

used wooden bucklers. Their offensive arms were wooden maces studded with iron, lances, and short swords.

Each Babylonian had, as his personal emblem, a walking-stick with some figure carved on the top, serving as his symbol, or, as we might say, armorial bearing. Every one had also a seal, usually in shape of a cylinder. An immense number of these cylinders have been discovered they bear some mythological symbols, and usually the name of the owner, of his father, and of the deity under whose protection he
;

had placed himself

only requiring the

name
is

These cylinders were kept ready made in shops, to be filled in, and some have been found
vacant.
that the Babylonians buried their

where the name-space 2. Herodotus sayst

a statement rather

difficult to

understand.

Some

facts

dead in honey, seem to indicate

that they also used oil for this purpose.

Marriages were made once a year at a public festival,! where the maidens of age to marry were put up to public auction. The beautiful girls sold for large sums, and this money was employed as a dowry for the ugly ones. No one could marry his daughter except in this way. This marriage festival was celebrated in the month Sabat, and the principal day was the last of the month. They gave to each damsel
*

Her.

i.

195.

Ibid.

i.

198.

% Ibid.

i.

196.

"

THE CHALDEAN CASTE.

493

they sold for marriage a model of an olive in baked clay, pierced with
a hole so as to be worn round the neck; on this was inscribed her

name, the name of her husband, and the date of the ceremony.
these olives have been found, and as specimens

Some

of

we
I.

give the inscriptions

on three now

in the

Museum
of

of the Louvre.

" Manutamat,

whom
whom

Bakit-Alsi has taken the day of the feast of Sabat, the ninth year of

Merodach Baladan, king

Babylon."

2.

" Binit Nisukin,

Ha...kan has taken, in the month Sabat, the tenth year of Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon." 3. " Halalat, whom Marnarih has taken, in the month Sabat, the eleventh year of Merodach Baladan, king of
Babylon.

The Greek writers* mention, among the peculiarities of the manners and customs of the Babylonians, one festival in summer, called Sacees, resembling the Saturnalia at Rome. The slaves for five days took command of their masters, and one of them, clothed in a royal robe, received the honours of a sovereign. This, no doubt, is the great festival mentioned twice by Sargon [Sharyukin], and Esarhaddon [Asshurakhiddin],
in their

inscriptions
at present

as

peculiar

to

9ak-muku,
the

name

unintelligible,
It is

from the Chalda^o-Turanian language.

Babylon, and called and probably borrowed mentioned as falling in

month Nisan.

Section

II.

The Caste of the Chald^^ans.

I. The population in Babylonia and Chaldreawas not, as in Assyria, one single unmixed race. On the contrary, it was essentially mixed, and contained, as we have already said, Cushite, Turanian, and Semitic

elements, imposed as

and devoted all such cases, to certain defined occupations. The merchants, artisans, and husbandmen formed each a caste. The fishermen of the marshes bordering on the Persian Gulf also formed a separate caste, and were at the bottom Herodotus t tells us that they lived entirely on of the social scale. Assyrian basdried fish, pounded and made into a species of cake. reliefs depict these people in the campaigning scenes of Sennacherib and Asshurbanipal as living in islands in the midst of the reeds, or
in rank,

were one over the other. the distinctions of castes, unequal

it

Thence

arose, as in

rather, with their families, inhabiting rafts covered with earth, forming floating islands, such as

may

still

be seen in some parts of China and

on the lakes of Mexico. The superior and dominant

of the Chaldoeans,

caste, entirely exclusive,

was composed
already
at-

properly so called, who, as

we have

tempted

to

show, were strangers, and conquerors of the Turanian race.

Athen.

xix. p. 369.

t Her.

i.

200.

494

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

exclusive possession of all priestly functions, and
tlie

They had obtained

details

used them so as to govern

state.

Classical writers give us

some

on tlieir organisation, functions, and power. 2. "Tlie Clialdx'ans," says Uiodorus Siculus, following Ctesias, who had seen tliem at Babylon, " are the most ancient of the Babylonians; they formed in the state a body resembling the priests in Egypt. Set apart for following up the worship of the gods, they passed their whole life in meditation on philosophical subjects, and had acquired a great reputation in astrology; they especially devoted themselves to the science of divination and to predictions of the future ; they attempted to avert evil and procure good fortune, either by purifications, or by They are accomplished in the art of sacrifices, or by enchantments.
predicting the future by observing the flight of birds; they explained

dreams and prodigies. Skilled in the art of inspecting the entrails of they were accounted capable of giving the true interpretation. But these branches of knowledge were not taught as among the Greeks. The learning of the Chaldasans was a family tradition; the son who Having their inherited this from his father was exempt from all taxes. the double advantage of being taught relations for instructors, they had everything without reserve, and that by masters in whose statements Accustomed to work from infancy, they they could put implicit faith.
\'ictims,

made
is

great progress in the study of astrology, partly because learning

easy at an early age, and partly because they received a long course of
.

instruction.

The Chaldaeans always remained

at the
;

same point

in

science, maintaining their traditions without alteration

the Greeks,

on

the contrar)', thinking of nothing but profit, were constantly forming

new

schools, disputing

among themselves

as to the truth of the

most

important doctrines, confusing the minds of their disciples, who, tossed about in continual doubt, ended in believing nothing at all."

by the Book of Daniel (Dan. i. 4; ii. 2; v. 7) what were the functions of the Chaldteans they composed many distinct classes, of more or less elevated rank, in the hierarchy. Some of them were the
see
;

We

sacred scribes, decipherers of writings; others the constructors of horoscopes, or interpreters of the stars, magicians
formulae, conjurors

who pronounced magical

malign influences.
it

who had power

to avert

Their
so
in

power of divination assured them great

influence, as

made them,

to speak, masters of every one's destiny.

They

usually foretold

almanacks, a custom that seems to have lasted to our

that our

own
in the

limes, all

common almanacks now

phenomena, and
in

predict,

fluctuations

tempera-

ture, physical

not confined to

had schools

The Chaldseans were Babylon, but were spread over all Babylonia. They places, more or less flourishing: according to various
historical events.

Strabo, that at Borsippa was the most celebrated.

That

at

Orchoe, or
to the

Erech, was also well known, and maintained

its

reputation

down


COMMERCE OF BABYLON.
times 01 the Romans.
the unity of

495

God was

In the period of the Seleucidse, the doctrine of as we know from tablets distinctly taught there
:

with cuneiform inscriptions, dated in the reign of several Greek kings, found at Warkah, and now in the British Museum. The only name of

a Deity found

in

them, and this

is

many

times repeated,

is

" God

One." 3. But the Chaldceans did not confine themselves to the duties and positions of priests and astrologers, and to the unbounded influence derived from this position both over the state and over individuals. They became the absolute governing class in politics. Members of this caste commanded armies, and held all the chief offices of the state. From them came all the royal families who ruled Babylon, whether
vassals of Assyria, or, after the time of Phul, completely independent.

whose do not yet know ; he was, next to the king, national and proper title we the chief personage of the empire; he accompanied the sovereign everywhere, even in war, to direct
all his

At

the head of the hierarchy and caste was an Archi- Magus,

actions according to priestly rule

and presage.

When

the king died and the legitimate successor could

not immediately assume the reins of power, this personage administered

the government in the interim, as in the instance which occurred between the death of Nabopolassar and the arrival of Nebuchadnezzar.

Section
I.

III.

Commerce of

Babyi.on.

Babylon, from

its

commercial prosperity.

geographical situation, naturally enjoyed great Placed at the junction of Upper and Lower

Asia, within reach of the two great rivers communicating vidth the Persian Gulf and the Indian Sea, the city necessarily became the depot
for the caravans, both of the east

port for ships arriving from

proves that this great city

and west, and at the same time the and India. Everything was, from remotest antiquity, one of the chief
Africa, Arabia,

commercial centres of the east. Babylon received the productions of the various Asiatic countries, and in return distributed to them the products of her own peculiar industry. Among the articles manufactured in great quantity by the Babylonians, woollen and linen fabrics were the most important. Robes and tapestry were nowiiere made so fine or so brightly coloured, as in Babylon. These celebrated manufactures were produced not only in the capital, but also in the other cities and towns of Baljylonia. According to Diodorus Siculus, there were, on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, a great number of depots for storing both the manufactures of the country and imported goods. In the time of Strabo, the chief manufacture of linen was at Borsippa, at that time distinct from Babylon.

496

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

made with
great taste and
articles

Besides robes and tapestry, the Babylonians

skill

of luxury, such as chased weapons, furniture, jewelry,

In exchange for Babylon received from the various countries of Asia everytliing Armenia required for llie wants and luxuries of such a great capital. sent its wines down the Euplirates, and Herodotus* gives us a most India supplied precious stones and interesting account of tlie voyage. great was the passion for the latter,that Tritantsechmes, large dogs,and so satrap of Babylon under the Acha'menians, had set apart four cities or large villages, exempted from all other taxes, on condition of maintaining his dogs.t From the same country, as well as from Persia, were imported valuable woollen fabrics. From Arabia and Ethiopia came
amulets, and engraved cylinders of stone for seals.
these,

perfumes, spices, gold, ivory, and ebony.

2.

Babylon was

in

communication with the

different countries that

furnished their merchandise by

city.

many

roads, all meeting at the great

One

of these routes, starting from

Babylon, went northward,

passed Ecbatana, the capital of Media, then turning eastward, passed Rhagse, traversed the famous defile of the Caspian gates, whence it

descended into Hyrcania and passed by Hecatompylos, as far as the city called, in later times, Alexandria of Aria. There it divided into two branches one of them tended northward to Bactria, the other turned

southward towards India by way of Drangiana and Arachosia, passing At the latter the cities of Prophthasia, Arachosia, and Ortospana. place the road again divided in three, called by the ancient geographers The first, running directly east, entered India ihe trivium of Bactria. by way of the cities of Peucela (Pushkalavati), and Taxila (Taksha9ila). From Taxila the road turned south, crossed the Hydaspes (Vitasta), the Hyphasis (Vipa9a), and thence went on to the confluence of the

Ganges

and lomanes (Yamuna)

at

Palibothra
at the

(Pataliputra).

The

second road leaving Ortospana arrived

;

same termination, passing

through Arachosia the third, turning to the north, entered Bactria and went on through Marachanda, as far as the laxartes. Another road connected Babylon with the border countries of the Mediterranean, passing due north through Mesopotamia to the Euphrates at Anthemusia, and thence turning westward to the sea. Again another road led first to Susa, turned north, and passed through
Assyria towards Armenia, crossed the northern part of that country, passed the Euphrates, traversed Cilicia and through the " Cilician
gates " entered Cappadocia.
at

Thence

it

traversed Phrygia and ended

Sardis, in

Lydia.
stations."

"Royal houses,"

says

travelled over great part of this road, "exist along

Herodotus,^ who had its whole length

and excellent
*

These were the caravanserais of the present

Her.

i.

194.

Ibid.

i.

192.

t Ibid.

v. 52.

RELIGION OF BABYLON.
day.

497

One hundred and

eleven such stations were reckoned, lierodotus

adds, between Sardis and Susa.

This road

is

still

employed by the

caravans between Smyiira and Ispahan.

road for commerce between 3. The Euphrates was the natural Babylon and Armenia and the countries of the Caucasus. Merchandise was transported, as Herodotus relates,* on round rafts supported by
still used in navigating the Tigris. These were abandoned to the current when they arrived at Babylon and the merchandise had been sold, the skins were emptied of air, and carried back by land, as well as the wood of the raft. Great works had been undertaken to facilitate the navigation of the river; the banks had been raised to keep in the water and prevent it from overflowing the land canals traversed the country, spreading

inflated skins, like the kclcks

rafts

fertility in

every direction, as well as afibrding means of communication

with

all

parts of

Mesopotamia.

Some

of these canals, as for instance

the Royal Canal, or Naliar UTahlia, were so large and deep as to

merchant ships. These numerous drains on the had rendered the current slower and less impetuous. This canal system had also another object; it assisted in the defence of the country
afford passage for large
river

against hostile neighbours.

The

capital of the empire

its

had

also

in the

days of

its

prosperity a

powerful navy;
precious

ships crossed the Persian Gulf in

search

of the

commodities of the south, the productions of Arabia and If we may credit Strabo, the Babylonians had factories and India. colonies in those countries; and Gerrha, one of the richest markets in
the world, was once, according to this celebrated geographer, a Chal-

The valuable and abundant pearls of the Persian Gulf, dsean colony. and the magnificent plantations of the Isle of Tylos, must have attracted From this island they procured the light and strong their merchants. Thus the merchandise and canes so much esteemed all over Assyria. productions of all Asia and Africa, flowed into Babylon, whence they were distributed to all parts of the empire.
Section IV. Religion.
Babylon was in all essential points the same as Assyria; it had followed the course of the Tigris, and its primithat of tive seat had evidently been Chaldaea in the early days of the first empire of Nimrod. But although all the fundamental doctrines of the religious system, and all its divine personages, were the same among the Assyrians as among the Babylonians, there were differences of race and genius between the two peoples that gave rise to some differences in their
I.

The

religion of

religion.

Herod, K K

194,

49S

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Tluis the Chaldceans had liccn led in the earliest times from Astronomy to Astrology; and tliis pretended science had received a greater development among them than ever at any time among other people. "According to them," says Diodorus Siculus, "the stars exercised an absolute and decisive influence on the birth of men, and determined Changes in the heavens were thus so many their good or evil destiny. evil fortune for countries and nations, as M'ell as for signs of good or The stars thus became the interpreters of the kings or individuals.

divine will, or rather of the decrees of destiny."

With such precon-

ceived ideas, their religious opinions necessarily took an astronomical

The and astrological form, even more markedly than at Nineveh. Chalda;ans supposed the divine hierarchy to be almost exclusively in Below the two superior triads one of relation to the sidereal world. them essentially creative, the other cosmical and below the deities of

the five planets, they placed twelve councillors of the gods, each of whom

presided over one of the months of the year, and over one of the signs

of the zodiac.

To

these chief deities were also attached other powers,

and forming essential This sidereal pantheism was not elements in the Chaldcean worship. only widely spread in Chaldoea, but had gained ground step by step among the neighbouring nations, and had become intimately mixed in their Thus, according to the testimony of the Book of Kings national faith. (2 Kings xxiii. 5, li), the Israelites, who were frequently brought into
distributed in both a scientific and religious order,

contact with the Babylonians, offered incense to the Sun, the

Moon,
also

the twelve zodiacal signs, and

that several of the kings of

all

the host of heaven.

We

know

Judah had dedicated horses

to the sun, in

imitation of the Babylonians.

2.

Such a system was too

learned, too complicated, to satisfy the

and sensual passions of the multitude. But the forms that these refined and scientific ideas assumed in the popular worship, indicate to what an extent the primitive Hamitic depravity still tainted the people of Babylon; whilst on the contrary in Assyria, the Semitic genius of the people had mvested the same ideas with the most spiritual and Everything elevated character that they were capable of assuming. proves that the most unbounded and shameless naturalism played a
gross desires

great part in the worship of the Babylonians.

historians, the writings of the

The

stories of

profane

Hebrew

prophets, the national

monu-

ments, such as cylinders and engraved stones of various kinds, the number and variety of the idols they adored.

testify to

One

of the chief features of the external and public organisation of

the national worship in Chaldcea was the localisation of the worship of

each divine personage in some particular city, where he was regarded as the first and greatest of the gods, whatever might be the place he filled
elsewhere in the hierarchy of the Babylonian Pantheon.

This privilege,

RELIGION OF BABYLON.

499

by which each divine personage, even if holding only secondary rank, might become, in the place wliere he was specially adored, the first of the gods, is however common to all pantheistic religions.* In the
spirit

of these religions, the one sole deity, the

first

being,

is

incom-

prehensible, invisible, and manifested only in his varied attributes, each

personified, each deified,

and

reflected in a variety of symbols.

These
bodies,

symbols, found in nature,

man

observes and imitates.

Immense

such as the sun, the moon, the earth

impressive

phenomena, such as

thunder, volcanic eniptions, deluges, are more extended expressions for

the deity; but these expressions are never complete,
either in his

man

is

unable,

mind

or

by

his eye,

to appreciate the idea of the divine

unity; the infinite inseparable from that unity, permitted

him

to see at

one time as it were only one side of the divine character. Thus every symbol, every figure, name, manifestation, or emanation, bears a double
character;

isolated they express only one of the

who was

qualities of the divine

being, combined they express both the unity and the variety.

The

deity

the principal object of worship at Babylon and at

Bilit or Mylitta, the great

Borsippa was Bel Merodach, with his wife,

nature-goddess,

who assumed the two opposite forms of Taauth and Zarpanit the one austere, the other voluptuous, like the two forms ot the Venus of classical mythology. Bilit had a magnificent temple in the centre of Babylon, where an infamous custom compelled every woman once in her lifetime to give herself up to a stranger. At Ur, the god of the city, from the remote times of Ur-Hammu, was Sin, the Moon-god. At Sippara and Larsam, Shamash, the Sun. At Erech and Nipur, Bilit-Taauth, "Goddess of the firmament." At Cutha, Nana or Zarpanit was worshipped under the name of Succoth Benoth, a name referring to the prostitutions in honour of that goddess (see 2 Kings xvii. 29 31). 3. The materialistic and profoundly immoral worship at Babylon, naturally excited extreme horror in the worshippers of Jehovah, and provoked their vehement invectives against the idols of Chaldsea. We quote the eloquent words that portray so vividly an always materialistic, often obscene, worship that was in fact no more than a constant employment of popular superstition for the profit of the priests. "Now ye shall see in Babylon gods of silver, and of gold, and 01 wood, borne upon shoulders, which cause the nations to fear. And taking gold, as it were, for a virgin that loveth to go gay, they make Sometimes also the priests convey crowns for the heads of tlieir gods. from their gods gold and silver, and bestow it upon themselves. Yea, they will give thereof to the common harlots, and deck them as men with garments, being gods of silver, and gods of gold and wood.

See page 324.

K K


500

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

he that cannot
jiut

death one that ofTendeth him holdcth a He (Bel sceptre (Nebo), as though he were a judge of the country. Merodach) hath also in his right hand a dagger and an axe, but cannot
to

And

They liglit them candles, war and thieves. more than for themselves, whereof they cannot see one. They are as one of the beams of the temple, yet they say their hearts are gnawed upon by things creeping out of the earth and when they eat them and
deliver himself from
yea,
.
.

their clothes, they feel

it

not.

... As

for the things that are sacrificed

unto them, their priests

sell
;

up

part thereof in salt

it.
.
.
.

and abuse ; in like manner their wives lay but unto the poor and impotent they give
ofif

nothing of
their wives
sitting in

The

priests also take

.

their

garments and clothe

and children. the ways burn bran

.

The women
perfume."*

also with cords about

them

for

Section V.
I.

Cosmogony.

The

Chaldceans, like

all

other people, had deeply considered the

problem of the origin of the world, and they had constructed a learned The chief points have cosmogony, explained in the books of Oannes. been preserved in the extracts from Berosus given by the Byzantine
chronologers.

We

have already seen,

in the preceding chapter, that three successive

divine emanations constituted the most exalted triad in the Chaldceo-

Assyrian religion

Oannes,

Ao, and Bel

representing the origin

of the

material world as an emanation from the substance of the divine being;

first

the primordial chaos, uncreated matter, sprung from the sole funda-

mental principle and cause of all tilings; next intelligence, or the word, that animates and renders it fertile; and lastly the demiurgus, who arranges and completes the organised universe, mixing himself up with
this universe.

We

shall see

now how
its

the last act of this trilogy, the

birth of the organised universe,

passage from the state of mdetei-mi-

nate existence, or of non-existence zuitk the

power of existing

(to

use the

phrases of that philosophy of Hegel that, in our days, has had recourse to the conceptions of ancient pagan pantheists t), to the state of deter7ninate existence ;
its

creation, in a word,

was symbolically

related in the

sacred books, and represented in paintings in the temple of Bel at The actors in this mythic cosmogony are Bel and his wife, Borsippa.
the personages in the third divine emanation.

We shall quote the text of

some fragments of Berosus.

* Baruch VI. Epistle of Jeremiah. t Compare the Vedic Hymn on this subject, Midler's Sanscrit Literature, pp. 560 564.

translated

in

Max

BABYLONIAN TRADITIONS.
"There was

501

a time in which there existed nothing but darkness, and

an abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings, which were produced of a twofold principle. There appeared men, some of whom were furnished with two wings, others with four and with two faces. They had one body but two heads the one that of a man, the other of a woman and likewise in their several organs both male and female. Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and horns of goats some had horses' feet while others united the hind quarters of a horse with the body of a man resembling in shape the hippocentaurs. Bulls likewise were bred there with the heads of men ; and dogs with fourfold
:
:

bodies, terminated in their extremities with the tails of fishes.

In short

there were creatures in which were combined the limbs of every species

of animals. In addition to these, fishes, reptiles, serpents, with other monstrous animals, which assumed each others' shapes and countenances, of all of which were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon. The person who presided over them was a woman named

Omorca, which, in the Chaldsean language,is Taauth;* in Greek Thalassa, the sea, but which might equally be interpreted the Moon. All things being in this situation, Belus came and cut the woman asunder and of one-half of her he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens ; and at the same time destroyed the animals within her. All this (he says) was an allegorical description of nature. For the whole universe consisting of moisture, and animals being continually generated therein, the deity above mentioned took off his own head upon which the other gods mixed the blood, as it gushed out, with the earth ; and from thence were formed men. On this account it is that they are rational, and This Belus, by whom they signify partake of the divine knowledge. Jupiter, divided the darkness, and separated the heavens from the earth, and reduced the universe to order. But the animals, not being able to bear the prevalence of light, died. Belus upon this, seeing a vast space unoccupied, though by nature fruitful, commanded one of the gods to take off his head and to mix the blood with the earth; and thence to form other men and animals, which should be capable of bearing the air. Belus formed also the stars and the sun and the moon and the five planets." t
; ;

The Greek

text has Thalatth,

form inscriptions.
original

a name not found in the cuneiBut now that we begin to know what were the

names of the Chalda:o-Assyrian deities, it is evident that the fragment of Berosus must be corrected by reading OavdrO in place of Ba\ar9, for reference is intended here to the goddess mentioned also by the philosopher, Damascius, undoubtedly following Berosus Bilit or Mylitta, Taauth, the wife of Bel, mother of the gods and of all beings, the great nature-goddess of Babylon, the passive and reproductive matter, organised by the demiurgus, and the source whence he drew the universe*

t Cory, Ancient Fragments,

p. 22.

S02
2.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

The
narrative of Berosus, borrowed from the books of Oannes,

goes on to relate the primitive history of the

dispersion of races.

In the
tales,

human race down Babylonian tradition we find, among

in the

to the

a host

of purely mythical

some

that present a very striking resemblance

to the patriarchal revelation preserved

Book

of Genesis.

The

number of

antediluvian patriarchs, the tradition of the deluge, that of

the building of the

Tower

of Babel, and of the confusion of tongues, of people of

are almost identical in each.

"At

Babylon there was,

(in these times), a great resort

various nations,

who

inhabited Chaldaea, and lived in a lawless

manner

like the beasts of the field.

" In the first year there appeared, from that part of the Erythraean Sea which borders upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with leason by name Oannes, whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish ; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice too and language was articulate and human, and
a representation of

him

is

preserved even to this day.

This being was

at

accu?rtomed to pass the day

season,

among men,

but took no food

that

and he gave them an

insight into letters

and

arts of every kind.

He

taught

them
to

to constract cities, to

found temples, to compile laws,

and explained

them the

principles of geometrical knowledge.

He

showed them how to collect the fruits ; in short, he instnicted them in everything which From that could tend to soften manners and humanize their laws. way of improvement to his time nothing material has been added by instructions. And when the sun had set this being, Oannes, retired again into the sea, and passed the night in the deep for he was am-

made them

distinguish the seeds of the earth, and

phibious.

After this there appeared other animals like

to give

which Berosus proposes

of the kings.

Oannes, oi an account when he comes to the history Moreover, Oannes wrote concerning the generation of
their civil polity."

mankind and of
diluvian
Light),

*
first

The Chalda:an

historian next gives the history of the ten

ante-

kings of Babylon

Almelon of

(Ram of Light), Alapar (Bull of Sippara (the name of this town meaning " the city of

Alor

books," seems to be here rendered by its Greek equivalent, Pantibibla, as it appears in the fragments of Berosus), Ammenon, Amelagar of Sippara, Daon of Sippara, Aedorach of Sippara, Amempsin of Larsam,
Otiarte of Larsam, and lastly Xisuthrus.
collectively 432,000 years of

The legend
life,

of the

cosmogomy

and places in their days assigns them of Bel Dagon, each of whom four new manifestations of Oannes, and one had left to mankind a book explaining and completing that of the first
Oannes.
*

Cory, Ancient Fragments,

p. 22.

BABYLONIAN TRADITIONS.
"In
which
is

503

the time of Xisuthrus happened a great deluge, the history of

thus described.

lated the ChaldcEo-Assyrian

The deity Chronus (the Greeks thus transname Ilu), appeared to him in a vision, and

warned him that upon the 15th day of the month Dassius (Sivan) there would be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all things, and to bury it in the city of the sun at Sippara and to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations, and to convey on board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and to trust himself fearlessly to the deep. Having asked the deity whither he was to sail, he was answered, To the gods,' upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition, and built a vessel five stadia in length and two in breadth. Into this he put everything which he had prepared, and last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his friends. After the flood had been upon the eailh, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out
'

birds from the vessel, which, not finding any food, nor any place where-

upon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days he sent them forth a second time, and they now returned with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds, but they returned no more, from w hence he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters. He therefore opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found that it was made an stranded upon the side of some mountain, upon which he immediately Xisuthrus then quitted it, with his wife, his daughter, and the pilot. paid his adorations to the earth ; and having constioictcd an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and with those who had come out of the vessel with him disappeared. "They who remained within, finding that their companions did not return, quitted the vessel with many lamentations, and called continually on the name of Xisuthrus. Him they saw no more, but they could distinguish his voice in the air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due regard to religion, and likewise informed them that it was upon account of this that he was translated to live with the gods that his To wife and daughter and the pilot had obtained the same honour. that they should return to Babylonia, and, as it was this he added ordained, search for the writings at Sippara, which they were to make known to all mankind moreover, that the place wherein they then were was the land of Armenia. The rest having heard these words offered sacrifices to the gods, and taking a circuit journeyed towards Babylonia. The vessel being thus stranded, some part of it yet remains in the Gordyaan mountain of Armenia ; and the people scrape off the bitumen with which it had been coated, and make use of it by way of
; ;


504

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

And when
*

an alexipharmic and amulet.

'had found
tlie

they returned to Babylon, and

writings at Sippara, they built cities and erected temples the preservation of the continuation of the narrative of

and Babylon was thus inhabited again."

4.

We

owe

Armenian historian, Moses of Chorene. " Before the Tower, and the multiplication of languages among mankind, after that Xisuthrus sailed to Armenia, Zervan, Titan and Japhetos were the lords of the earth. Scarcely had they dix-ided the world among

Berosus, not to the Greek chronologers, but to the

them, when Zervan made himself lord over his two fellows. Titan and Japhetos opposed themselves to him, and made war on him, for Zervan wished to make his children reign over them all. In the conflict Titan acquired possession of a part of the heritage of Zervan ; but their sister

made peace between them.t Japhetos necesJaphet of the Bible; another fragment, also preserved by Moses of Chorene, identifies Zervan with Shem. The name of Titan seems a Greek translation of "Nimrod," "the rebel," the name given
Astlik interposed, and
sarily recalls the

by the Semites to the originator of the primitive preponderance of the Hamite race at Babylon, clearly indicated in the narrative of Berosus by the conquest of a part of the inheritance of Zervan by Titan.
5.

The

story of primitive and fabulous times, the preface to early

work of the Chaldaean priest, who had transGreek the annals of his country, with the story of the Tower of Babel and of the confusion of tongues. We have already quoted, J in the first book of our Manual, the mention, apparently made in an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, of the restoration of a building to which this tradition was attached. Berosus records this event as follows, in complete agreement with the Bible, and with the words of Nebuhistory, terminates in the

lated into

chadnezzar

and despising the gods, undertook to raise a tower whose top should reach the sky, in the place in which Babylon now stands but when it approached the heaven, the winds assisted the gods and overthrew the work upon its contrivers, and its ruins are said to be still at Babylon ; and the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language ; and a war arose between Chronus and Titan. The place in which they built the tower is now called Babylon, on account of the confusion of tongues, for confusion is by the Hebrews called Babel."
size,
;

"They say that own strength and

the

first

inhabitants of the earth, glorying in their

Cory, Ancient Fragments,

t MoiSE DE Khorene.
Traduction Fran^aise.
X Page 23.

p. 26. Ilisioire d'Arminie.

Texte Ai-menien,
p. 34.

et

Venise, 1841.

Cory, Ancient Fragments,


BABYLONIAN ART.
A
story exactly similar
is

505

told

by Moses of Chorene, not from Berosus,

but from another Greek work of Chaldaean origin, which he quoted

from a Syriac version.

Section VI.

Arts.

1. All writers of antiquity concur in stating that Babylon was always very superior to Nineveh in all that pertains to literary culture and the sciences. All the notions of the Assyrians on science, all the

standard works of their literature, the best of their religious books,

lonians

them from Chaldaea. But in all the plastic arts the Babyhad not at any period the genius of their Ninevite neighbours, and were always far behind them. Assyria was the birthplace of the
to

came

great school of ancient art, an art exercising deep and decisive influence

on the opening period of the Grecian school. Babylon and Chaldoea had nothing to compare with this. Undoubtedly Babylon, from the earliest days of its existence, from the time of the Tower of Babel, its first example, had her own peculiar architecture, imposing and grand in style from the very size of its conceptions, but with no variety; for temples, palaces, and hanging gardens, were all constructed as pyramids, in steps or terraces, one above the other, and the upper smaller than the lower. This had been, as we have already shown, the general type of the buildings of the first Chaldjean empire, some of them still existing in our times. This, with no modification at
all,

a thousand years

later,

when

the Babylonian
in

kingdom

Western Asia, was the invariable type of the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar. This architecture, employing no materials but crude or burnt brick, exercised, as we have shown, an absolute influence on that of Assyria, where it was copied even to the materials employed, though better materials were within easy reach. It seems, however, that the Assyrians introduced a little more variety in the exterior forms of their buildings than
regained
its

ancient glory and

became preponderant

the Babylonians.
2.

But

if

the Assyrians imitated the Babylonian architecture, their

represented

which they excelled, was peculiar to themselves. They human figures, and generally all living nature, with wonderThe Babylonians could not do this and from the ful correctness. remote period when the cylinder of king Urchammu was engraved, down to the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the plastic arts seem to have made no real progress. An eminent scholar, Etienne Quatremere, many
sculpture, in
;

years ago remarked on the proportions of the colossal golden statue of

Nebuchadnezzar, that, as given in the Book of Daniel, they "prove complete ignorance, entire forgetfulncss of the proportions between the
various parts of the

human body,"

as the height

was ten times the

5o6
breadth.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

Ami
these are exactly the proportions to be found in
still

llic

small number of remains of Babylonian art

preserved.

No

doubt

the relative proportions of the various parts of the

sculptors as in those of the Egyptians, but

human body

are not

so accurately calculated or exactly observed in the works of Assyrian

tiie

errors found in

them

are

nothing as compared to the really monstrous misproportions tiial seem Babylonian and Assyrian art are, to have been the rule at Babylon.
moreover, so perfectly independent of each other that they each seem to have taken the type of their own race as their model for the human
figure.

In the Assyrian sculptures the figures are usually short, in Babylonian works they are generally tall and thin. All that we at present possess of monuments of Babylonian art conof cylinders and other engraved stones, and a few enamelled bricks

.sists

with symbolical and religious subjects.

too
tall,

but their gestures are

is

Not only are awkward and untrue to

is
stiff,

the figures
nature, the

much

position

rudimentary,

everything

and

lifeless,

comshowing art

The execution of the not yet advanced beyond a state of infancy. Babylonian cylinders is much less finished than that of the Assyrian.
3.

Painting, either in the form of frescoes or of casings of enamelled

bricks,

was the

chief element in the decoration of Babylonian buildings.

Ctesias gives a long description of the ornamentation of the great royal

palace, attributed

by him

to Semiramis, but in reality dating

from the

These represented the same hunting and war scenes as the sculptures of the Assyrian palaces, and no doubt the capture of Jerusalem was depicted there. Berosus, in a fragment we have quoted,* gives some information as to the religious and cosmographical paintings in the temple of Bel, no doubt in the sanctuary. Many pictures on enamelled bricks covered the exterior walls of buildreign of Nebuchadnezzar.
ings, with long inscriptions in painted cuneiform characters, a practice

that never seems to have prevailed in Assyria.

Coloured sculpture was also employed in the decoration of some Babylonian edifices, such as the royal palace, and many such remains have been found there. But this sculpture was not, as in Assyrian A slab of clay palaces, executed in stone, but in enamelled bricks.

was taken

sufficiently large to contain the

represented.

On

this slab a bas-relief

whole subject intended to be was modelled, and it was then

each forming one brick.
in the picture,

cut into rectangles about 3 ins.

pieces,

5 ins.,

The
were

respectively

marked with

their position

coloured separately with suitable pigments, and baked in a furnace.

put together with mortar according to the marks preThese were the first rude essays in those Mosaics which, in after times, the Greeks and Romans executed with such skill. Stone of various sorts, usually of volcanic origin, such as basalt, was
viously made.
*

They were then

Page

501.

LIST OF

THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA.

507

A colossal group has been found in the ruins of the palace at Babylon, in the Kasr, representing a lion devouring a man. This, the only piece of Babyused in Baliylonian monuments, but only for statues.
lonian sculpture that has been preserved, and apparently occupying a

place of honour in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar,

is

executed in a

wonderfully rude manner.

List of Assyrian Royal

Names

as given by-

M. Lenormant,
Manual
of Oriental History.

5oS

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST.

M. Lonormnnt,

INDEX TO VOL.

I.

Aa-hotep, tomb of, and jewels, 225, 333 Aaron meets with Moses, 94; makes appointed High Priest, golden calf, 98
;

Addumu, Arab

city,

taken

by Tiglath-

pilcser II., 390;

II.,

by Esarhaddon, 408
inscription of

Adloun (near Tyre),

249
82

Ramses

103 death, 107 Abdadana, part of empire of BinUkhish III., 382 Abdillit, king of Aradus pays tribute to Sennacherib, 398 Abdimilkut, king of Sidon escapes from
;

Admah,

Esarhaddon, 404

Abdon, Suffete or Judge of Hebrews, 122 war with Abijam succeeds Rehoboam
;

Adonai, see Aten Adoni-Baal, king of Sidon, 380 Adonibezek, defeated by Hebrews, 115 put Adonijah, son of David, revolts, 141 to death by Solomon, 142 Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, in; de;

Israel

death,

15-2

and death, 112 Adoraim, city in Judah, taken by Shishak,

feat

Abimelech iking of Gerar), 85, 86 Abimelech (son of Gideon), 121 Abner, commander of Saul's army, 133; proclaims Ishbosheth, 136 murdered by
;

274 Aedorach, antediluvian king of Sipparah,

502

Joab, 137 Abraham intercedes for Sodom resides at comreturns to Mamre Gerar, 84 manded to offer up Ibaac sends Eleazar second marriage, to Mesopotamia, 85 death, and burial, 86 Abram, call of, 80 leaves Haran, goes to Egypt, returns to Bethel, separates from covedefeats Chedorlaomer Lot, 81 name changed takes Hagar nant, 82 to Abraham, 83 Absalom, son of David, revolts, defeat, and death, 140
;
;

king of Idalium, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 tnAfrica, alteration of white race in, 51 bute from to Thothmes III., 233; circumnavigation of, 285
Aegistus,
Affiliation of nations, table of, 57

Agglutinated languages, 68
Agises, heads rebellion at Babylon, 397

Ahab succeeds Omri

as king of Israel, 156; Jezebel his wife's idolatry, 157; victories over Benhidri II., 158; treaty with Syrians, 159; assists Syrians with 10,000

Abyate, Arab
414

general, 413;
of,

flayed alive,

Abydos, tablet
buildings of

200; temple, 242, 336; ii. 245 Abyssinia, subdued by ThothmesIII., 230; revolt repressed by Ramses III., 267. Accad, race, 342, 344; city, 348; supre-

Ramses

against AssjTians, 159, 380: Naboth, Jehoshaphat, 160; expedition to extinction of Ramoth, 160; death, 161 family, 165 Ahaz succeeds Jotham as king of Judah

men

159;

war with

Ashariah, son of Tabeal, 172, 389 treats with Assyrians, attends court of Tiglath172, 389; Pileser at Damascus, 173, 390 Assyrian
Israel
; ;
j

macy

of,

355
to

altar

death, 173

Accho, submits

Sennacherib, 39S; taken

Ahaziah

succeeds
;

by Asshurbanipal, 40S Achseans, invade Egypt and are defeated,

260

Judah

at

Jehoram as king of Ramoth his death, 164

;
;

Ahaziah succeeds Ahab as king of Israel death, 162 fall and illness, 161
Ahijah,
predicts separation of reproaches 146; Israel and Judah, Jeroboam with idolatry, 151

Adam, descendants of, 4; city, 112 Adar [Saturn], 454 Samdan, 455
; ;

prophet,

[Ninip,

temple of, 485 Adar-pal-ashir, king of Assyria, 373 Adar-samdan, inscription in temple of, 377
455, n.]

Ahmes

(king of Egypt), 223 expels Shepherds, 224 Nubian alliance ; restoration

; ;

Sio
of temples, 225
Palestine, 226
;

INDEX.
follows Slicplierds to

Ahmes
Ahmes

(general), record of his

;

wars with

Shepherds, 224
(king of

with Ethiopia, 228

Amcn-hotop I. subdues Shasu, Palestine, and Ethiopia, 228 Amen-hotep IT., campaigns in Mesopotamia
;

inscriptions, 236
III.,

Kgypt [Amasis]), dethrones Uahprahtt, 286 his sayings, commerce;

;

Amen-hotcp
tomb. 333

conquests
;

in

Asia and

builds temples, 288

Africa, 236; slave hunts scriptions; known as

buildings; in-

Memnon, 237;

Aholiab, directs work on tabernacle, 103,

105
Ai, capture
of,

Amen-hotep
iii.

Aipaksina, Susianian god, 412 Ajalon, taken by Shishak, 274

IV., wars, 237; religious innovations, 238, 337 change of name, 238
;

Amen-i, tomb
Amen-iritis,

of,

Akhimit, made king of Ashdod by Sargon,

394

.sister

Piankhi

II.,

217 of Shabaka, 238

wife

of

Akkerkuf, ruins

at, 356 Alabaster, use of in Assyrian buildings,

Amen-meri-nut, king of Ethiopia, invades Egypt and retires, 282

457 Alapar, antediluvian king of Babylon, 502 Albania, part of empire of Binlikhish III., 382; wars of Sargon in, 394; wars of Sennacherib in, 398 Albordj, mount, 20

Amenmeses usurps throne

of Egypt, 262 Amen-tu-tankh, king of Egypt, 239

Anierica, source of population, 16
tions of deluge, 17
;
;

tradi-

physiognomy of red

men, 52

Amida
381

rebels

languages, 67 against Shalmaneser IV.,

Alexander attemps

to

re-build

Babylon,

SOI Alexandria, foundation

Alfourou, race
52

of, 195 physical characteristics

Ammankashibar, Susianian god, 412 Ammelagar, antediluvian king of Sippara,

of,

502

Ammenon,
in,

antediluvian king of Sippara,

;

Algeria, Egyptian remains

235 Allabria, part of empire of Binlikhish III., 382 Almelon, antediluvian kmg of Sippara, 502
Alor, antediluvian king of Babylon, 502 Altar, Assyrian, 175

502
origin, 84 oppress Hebrews, 121: allied with Philistines, 126; defeated by Saul, 131 defeated by David, 139; subdued by Uzziah, 168 by Jotham, 171 pay tribute to Sennacherib, revolt from Chaldaians, 188 ; in398 vaded by Nebuchadnezzar, 478 Amnon, son of David death, 140
;

Ammonites,

Alun, see Elon Amada, temple at, 235, 236 Amalekites attack Hebrews in desert, 97 defeated by Saul, 133 inhabiting the border of Egypt, 227
;

Amon
Seti
;

succeeds
;

Manasseh
;

as

king of

Judah
Amorites
I.,

death, 182

occupy Kedesh
243
;

defeated

by
II.,

Amanus,

Tiglath-pileser I. at, 375; As.shurnazirpal at, 378 ; Shalmaneser IV. at,

revolt against

Ramses
iii

380 Amarsin, king of Chaldasa, 355 Amasis, see Ahmes

249 make war on Hebrews, Amos, the prophet, 169

Amram, mound

at

Babylon, 480

Amathus, king

of, a tributary of Esarhaddon, 407 Amaziah succeeds Jehoash as king of Judah war with Idumaea takes Petra war with Israel, 167; taken prisoner; death at Lachish, 168 Amempsin, antediluvian king of Larsam,
: ; ;

Amiaphel, king of Shinar, 82, 352 Amten, tomb of, 205 Amytis, queen of Nebuchadnezzar, 480
Anarian, or Ninevite, cuneiform writing, 433 Anat, or Anaitis, female form of god Anu, 454 Andiu, subject to Binlikhish III., 382

502

Amen, supreme god of Thebes, 324

;

high

priests of usurp government, 270 retire to Ethiopia, 273; invade Egypt, 276

Anebos mentioned as king of Assyria by Moses of Chorene, 371

Animals, domestic, remains worship of in Egypt, 325
of,

33, 34, 35

Ameneman,

papyrus describing miseries of the Egyptians, 258

his
III.,

the

Amen-em-he
;

builder

name 215, 333 d)masty, 214

common

of labyrinth, in fourteenth

Anks-en-ranofrehet, daughter of tik II., wife of Ahmes, 286

Psamme-

Annamim, or Anu, 202 and Khufu, 205

subdued by Snefru

INDEX.
Anon, or Bnon, Shepherd king, 221
Ansapata, Susianian god, 412 Anthropology, 52, 53

5"

Archies, Shepherd king, 221 Ardys succeeds Gyges as king of Lydia,

Anthropomorphism of Egyptian
319 Antiquity of the

religion,

409 Argo, colossus

in Isle of,

218

human

race, 3

Anu, see Annamim Anu, see Cannes Anugas, city of Rotennu, 249

Aria, subject to Tiglath-pileser II., 391 language, 73 Arians, traditions of, 15 migrations, 343 supremacy at Babylon,
; ;

351, 355
'

Ariel,

Ao, or Bin, Assyrian deity, 453 Apamea, legend about the Ark, 16 Apap, see Apophis Apepi, Shepherd king, the Pharaoh Joseph, 8g, 221, 223

king of Soli tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 Arioch, king of Ellasar, 82, 252
Aiistocratic

government of Egypt,
:

208,

of

296 Ark of Noah, 16

Ark

Aphek, defeat of Hebrews by

at,

Philistines
of,

127

Apis, Bull, golden calf imitation worship of, 32S

98

of Xisuthrus, 503 at Shiloh, of the Covenant, 99, 104 114; taken by the Philistines, 127, 271 at Jerusalem, at Kirjath-jearim, 127 138
;

Ark of Chons,

Apology, or negative confession

312

in ritual,

in Mesopotamia, 271 Armenia, inhabitants Remenen, 228

sub-

Apophis, serpent,
322

enemy

of Horns, 320,

dued by Thothmes III., 230, 234; subdued by Seti I., 242, 243 revolt under
;

Apophis, king, see Apepi

Apries, see Uahprahet

Arabs, tradition as to primitive kings, 13; physical characteristics, 51 language, subdued by Osortasen I., 214 by 71 Thothmes III., 230 by Uzziah, 168 expedition of Tiglath-pileser II., 390; of Esarhaddon, 405, 406 rebellion of Ywaite, 409 defeat of Arabs, 413, 414 king assists Asshurbanipal in invasion of Egypt, 280 employed as mercenaries by Psammetik, 284 expedition of Nebuchadnezzar, 478 Arachosia, see Arakuttu
; ; ; : ; ;
;

248 expeditions of Asshurnazirpal, 378 of Salmaneser IV., 379, of Shalman381 of Shamash-bin, 382 eser v., 385 of Tiglath-pileser II., 389; Syrians transported there, 173, 390; Sargon's campaign, 394; Sennacherib's wars,
II.,
;
:

Ramses
;

398 cuneiform writing, 433 Armit, city taken by Sargon, 394

;

Egyptian, 291; 158; Babylonian, 487 Arnon, Hebrews at, 107 Arpad, besieged three years by Tiglathrevolt, 393 pileser II., 389 Arphaxad, son of Shem ancestor of Hebrews, 60
Assyrian, 422
; ;

Army,

Hebrew,

Aradus taken by Thothmes

volts

III., 233 re249; taken by Tiglath-pileser I., 375 pays tribute to Asshurnazirpal, 378 to Sennacherib, 398 taken by Asshurbanipal, 408 Arakuttu, subject to Tiglath-pileser 11.,
;

Arrapkha, rebels against Shalmaneser IV.,

381

from Ramses

II.,
;

Arrakhu, revolt at Babylon under, 490

primitive, 29 ; Art, original inventors, 4 early Chaldaean, Egyptian, 209, 327
; ;

363

391 Aral, lake, primitive centre of Turanians,

Arvand,

Assyrian, 456 river, 20

Babylonian, 505

Aryanam Vacdjo,

20, 21
;

343

Aram,

son of Shcm, 60 language people, 70, 227 Aram, high land of Pale.stine, 8i
;

of

Asa, succeeds Abijam king of Judah, 152 destroys idols: defeats Zcrah, 153; bribes takes king of Syria to invade Lsrael Ramah, 154 imprisons prophet death,
; ;
;

Ararat, mount, situation

of,

19
of,

Arbaces the

470 retires after capture of Nineveh, 387 Arbela revolts from Shalmaneser IV., 381
385,

i\Icde,

revolt

Arbehis named as kmg of Assyria, Moses of Chorene, 371 Arch, Assyrian, 460
Archaeolithic epoch, 24 Archaic cuneiform writing, 434

by

155 Ascalon, taken by Egyptians from Khitas, Philistines allowed to settle near, 254 taken 267; untaken by Hebrews, 113 by Philistines, 124, 272 trophies of Saul deposited there, 136; captured by Sennacherib, 399 plundered by Scythians, 184 Asenath, Joseph's wife, 90 Ashariah, son of Tabeal, 172, 389
; ; ;
;

Architecture, Egj'ptian, 209, 216 Assyrian, 457 ; Babylonian, 505

;

A.shdod, untaken by Hebrews, 113; RamPhilistines to settle III. allows ses

;; ;

; ; ; ;

512
there,
;

INDEX.
377; conquest of Babylon, Syria, etc., 378; bronze dishes, 363; palace at Calah, 377 statue, 377
;

367; taken by Philistines, 124, taken of Covenant there, 127 by 'I'iglath-pileser II., by Uzziah, 168 by Sargon, 394 tribute to Sen390 taken by Psammeticus, nacherib, 398 184, 285 ., ^ Asher, son of Jacob, 87 territory of tribe,

272

Ark

Asshur-rish-ishi, king of Assyria, 117 n., 374 puts down revolt in Babylon, 374,
;

469
Asshur-u-balat, kingof As.syria to Babylon, 372, 408
A.ssyria,
;

expedition

"3
Ashtaroth, worship byAhab,i57; by lManasseh,i8i. 6VfIshtar
of,
;

by Solomon, 145

22I

first

power dreaded by Shepherd kings, empire; legend of Ninus and

364,
;

Ashteroth-karnaim, 108 Ashkenaz, son of Shem; ancestor of Ger-

Semiramis,

manic

races, 61, 235

Chaldaja, 356 228, 360; by

subordinate 370; invaded by Thothmes

to
I.,

Asia Minor, coasts subjugated by Thothmes III., 235; people assist Khitas campaigns of against Ramses II., 249 of Sargon, 393 Asshurnazirpal, 378 of Asshurbanipal, of Sennacherib, 404 408 Assaracus, last king of Assyria kills himself at capture of Nineveh, 416, 472 As.sa-tat-kera, king of Egypt, 209
;

Thothmes III., 233, 361; by Amenhotep II., 236; subject to Seti I., 242, 243; revolt against Ramses II., 248; subject to Ramses II., 266,362 Asshur-bel-nishishu power of rise
I
;
: ; ;

Asshur, son of Shem, 59. A,s.shur, or Ellasar [Kileh-Sherghat], identification of, 349 n. king pays tribute to Thothmes III.; defeat of Binbaliddm at,
;

fortified 379, 373 469; rebellion, 381 Asshur, supreme god of Assyria, 453 winged figure, 453 n. Asshur-a-bamar, king of Assyria, 376 As.shurbanipal, king of Assyria, succeeds Esarhaddon; marches to Egypt, 279, evacuation of 407, 471; conquest and country, 280 second and third campaign in Phoenicia and Ciiicia, embassy from Lydia, 408 great rebellion, 409 war in Babylonia and Susiana, 410, 411, 412 war in Arabia and Syria, 413 his record
;
; ;
; ;

by Shalmaneser IV.,

of

invasion
;

of

Kedor-nakhunta,
;

Greek names, 414

palace, 415

352 prayer,

Bushur-asshur, 371, 468 Asshur-u-balat Budiel Bellikhish invades Babyltm Shalmaneser I.; TuklatBinlikhish; samdan I.: provinces, 372, 469; revolt of Belkudurussur, 469; Adarpalashir and Ramses XII., 373; Mutakkil-Nabu TigAsshur-rish-ishi; foreign conquest lath-pileser I.; expedition; alliance with Her Hor, 272, 374 defeat by Babylonians, 375; Asshur-bel-kala; ShamshiShalmanbin; Belkatirassu Beletaras) Asshur-idinakhe; eser II.; Irib-bin conquest of Media; Asshuredililani II.; Tuklat-.samdan Binlikhish, 376; Asshur-nazir-pal palace statue; inscripconquest of Babylon and tion, 377 Northern Syria, 37S, 469; Shalmaneser IV.; expeditions; Benhidri, 379; power feared in Western Asia, 166 e.>ipeditions, revolt, 166, 159, 380; Hazael and Jehu; 381; Shamash-bin revolt suppressed; Binlikhish III., 382, 470; expeditions; Shalmaneser his wife Sammuramat, 384 V. at Damascus and Armenia Asshureclipse of sun insurrection edililani
;

418 sculptures, 430 Asshur-bel-kala, king of Assyria, 376 Asshur-bel-nishi-shu, first king of Assyria treaty with Babylon, 371, 468 Asshur-daninpal, second son of Shalmaneser IV., revolts, 381, 469; subdued by Shamash-bin, 382 Asshur-dayan, king of Assyria; throws off Egyptian yoke, 374 Asshur-edililani I., king of Assyria, 376
;

Asshur-likhish, 385 Arbaces and Phul siege of Nineveh, 386, 470 fall and dePhul and Menastruction of city, 3S7 hem, 170, 172 Tiglath-pileser II. ex;

Syria Census, peditions to Babylonia Damascus and Philistine cities 389 court of kings at Damascus taken transportation of Lsrael, 172, 173, 390
;
;

campaigns
;

in

Aria and Syria

Shalman;

Sargon revolt of Israel, 391 eser VI. Samaria defeat of Susianians eclipse taken battle of Raphia, 175, 278, 392
;
; ;

Asshur-edililani II., king of Assyria^ 3S5 Asshur-edililani III., king of Assyria and Babylon defeats Medes, 415, 471
;

Asshur-idinakhe, king of Asyria, 376 Asshur-likhish [Asshur-tanagbal], king of Assyria, 385, 470 rebellion of Arbaces and Phul, 385 defeat of Assyrians, 386 fall and destruction of Nineveh, 387 Asshur-nadin, son of Sennacherib, king of Babylon, 400 death, 401
;
;

Asshur-nazirpal, son of Tuklat-samdan II., eclipse, campaigns king of Assyria

;
;

from Arabia and in Asia Minor, Karkar, and Van, 393 in Armenia capture of Ashdod, 394; tribute from Milukhi war in Cornmagene, Albania, and Babylonia tribute Dur-Vakin taken, 395, 47 Dur J yre attacked, 396 from Cyprus murder of Sargon Sharyukin built Sennacherib wars in Chalda;a, Armenia, battle with Media, and Syria, 398 Egyptians; Hezekiah, 177, 178, 399; disaster to army, siege of Jerusalem viceroy of 179, 278, 400; Asshur-nadin

Gaza taken Egj'pt war

;

tribute

INDEX.
Babylon, 400
401
;
;

513
dethroned

wars
;

Nineveh
s-ack

rebuilt,

of Baby'on, Esarhaddon in Phoenicia, 404 403, 471 wars round Black Sea, in Alanasseh Babylonia, and Arabia, 403, 406 Cyprus and Egypt, 182, 278, 279, 407 Asshurrebellion, 402
; ;
;

Azuri, king of Ashdod, Sargon, 394

by

Araziash, part of empire of Binlikhish III., 382

banipal, 407 in Egj^pt, Phoenicia, and embassy from l^ydia, 408 at Tyre Susa taken, great rebellion, 409, 471 410, 411, 412 war in Arabia, 413 Greek Asshurinscription, 352 names, 414 Medes defeated, 415 Assaedililani
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
;

B.
Baal, worship of by Ahab and Jezebel, Ahaziah consults oracle, 161 Atha157 liah establishes worship at Jerusalem, overthrown by Jehoiada, 165 re165 established by iManasseh, 181
; ;
:

racus Babylonians and Medes combine, 416 fall of jNineveh, 416, 475 organititles of kings, sation of empire, 417 palaces, 418, 419, 458 348, 373. 418 government, 419 chanceries, 420 petieponyms and military adtions, 421 classes, 423 ministration, 377, 422 manners, laws, 424 domestic life, 425 religion, arts, 426-430; language, 70, syllabaiium, 436 writing, 431 342 books, 444 and science literature medicine and magic, 447 library, 445 astronomy, mensuration, notation, 449, months, 451 religion, 450 j'ear, 450 winged bulls, 450 ob452 arts, 457 paintsculpture, 465 servatories, 463 See also list of kings, 507. ing, 467 Chaldasa, Babylon, Nineveh
; ;
;

Baal, king of Tyre, submits to Asshurbanipal, 408

Baalath built by Solomon, 143 Baali, king of Upri, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 Baasa, king of Ammon, 380

Baasha assassinates Nadab, and becomes

king of
Israel,

Babel, tower

of, 7, 22, 341, 482, 504 Babios mentioned as king of Assyria, by Moses of Chorene, 371

Astamaku taken by Shalmaneser

;

IV., 380

Babylonian, 494, Astrology, Assyrian, 463 498 Chaldasan, Astronomy, EgjTJtian, 316 359 Assyrian, 448, 463
; ;

Babylon, name of, 24 empire, 211 city of Rotennu, 227 subject to Thothmes III., 234, 361; submits to Seti I., 243; one of the cities of Chaldsean Tetrapolis, early civilisation, 350 Cushite 348 dynasty, 351 Medes, or Iranians, 351 subordinate to Ur, 355 Karatadash Burnaburyash, 371 Karahardash Nazibugash Kurigalzu, 372, 46S taken by
;
;

; ;

Tuklat-samdan
373, 375,

I.

Astj'ages, a

name given

to Cyaxares, 472

Atavism, 56 Aten, or Adonai, worship

of,

238
;

by Asshurnazirpal, 378 by Shalmaneser IV., 380 by Shamash-bin,

;
;

469 469

taken

revolt and success, by Tiglath-pile.ser I.,

;
;

382

Sammuramat queen,
;

3S4

revolt
;

Athaliah, daughter of Jezebel, 160 leads Jehoram to idolatry, 163 murders her grandchildren usurps kingdom death,
;

under Phul, 3S6 Nabonassar, 470 subjugated by Tiglath-pileser II., 389; by

Agises, 397 Merodach Belibus. 398 revolt Asshurnadin, 400 revolt against Sennacherib, Mesisimordach Suzub 401 Irigibel second defeat of defeat of rebels, 402 EsarSuzub sack of Babylon, 403 revolt of Shaniash-ibni, haddon, 404 works of Esarhaddon, 406 Sha405 revolt Nabubelmulshamugin, 407 shum defeat of ChaKaeans, 409 submission of Shamulshamugin, 410 who is dethroned by Asshur-edililani NabopoNitocris works lassar, 184, 415, 471 erected by, 473 Nebuchadnezzar fall campaign in of Nineveh, 416, 473 Syria Jerusalem, 187, 476 capture and Phccnicia, 190, destruction of that city 477 campaign in Idumea and Arabia,

Sargon, 395

165
Athribis
Ati,

Baladan
;

receives Assyrian Psammetik king, 280

name,

278

king of Egypt, 210

personification of sun at night, 319

Atum,

Avaris, city of Shepherds, 221, 356 Aurignac, sepulchral grottoes at, 29

Australia, aboriginal traditions, 18

Aym, Arab

general, 409

flayed alive

by

Asshurbanipal, 414 Aza, king of Van, murdered by his subjects, 393

Azariah, prophet, encourages Asa, 154 Azariah, companion of Daniel in captivity, 187 Azariah, king, see U;:ziah

Azbaal made king of Aradus by Asshurbanipal, 408 Azerch-amen (Zerah\ king of Ethiopia,
invades Egypt and Palestine by Asa, 153, 274
;

defeated

Evil-Mcrodach, 487 Nergalsarus478 Nabonahid, 488 sur Laborosoarchod capture of Babylon, defeat by Cyrus 489 revolt of Nidintabel city taken by Xer.xes insurrection Darius, 490 Alexander Seleucida; complete ruin of Babylon, 491
;

L L

514
;

INDEX,
Beni-hassan, tombs
at, 2t6, 233 Benhidri bribed by Asa to invade Israel, 154 Benhidri defeated by Shalmaneser IV., 379, 380; murdered by liazacl, 163, 381 Benjamin, son of Jacob, 87 ; defeat and slaughter of tribe, 116

Babylon, cuneiform writing, 433 syllabarium, 436 sacred books, 444 medicine, buildings, 478 palaces, gardens, 447 temples, 365, 478, 482, 4S4 Hiliat, outer
; ;

city,
;

481

manners and
;

religion,
;

492,

commerce, Chalda;an caste, 493 497 roads, 496 rivers, canals, ships, 495 497 licentiousness, 498, 490 cosmogony, Cannes and antedduvian kings, 500 art and architecture, 505 sculp502 ture and painting, 506 Babylon in Egypt, 257
;
;
;

Ben Tabeal,

see

Ashariah

Bent-anat, daughter of

Ramses

II.,

256

Bactrians, Japhetic race, 61 Badaca, see Madaktu

Berber, race, 51 Berezat, Mount, 20

Bet-dakkurri, Shama-sh-ibni besieged Beth-anath taken by Egyptians,
Bethel,
ites,

in,

Bagamar, Susianian god, 412

Bagistan, see Behistun

Bagota, inundation

in,

14

of, 87 taken by Ephraimgolden calf set up, 151 taken by Abijam, 152
;

name
;

IIS

Balaam, 109 Balak, king of Moab, 108 defeat of, 109 Balazu, see Phul Balikh, river, Shalmaneser IV. at, 379 Baneteren, king of Egypt, 204
;

Beth-horon, battle Shishak, 274

of,

in, 112

taken by

Bethlehem, Rachel dies at, 88 Bet Yakin, revolt at migration of inhabit;

ants, 402

Ba-n-ded,

name

of Mendes, 326
city,

Bet

Banun, Susianian
banipal, 412

taken by Asshur-

Barak defeats

Sisera, 119, 120

Zitti submits to Sennacherib, 398 Beyrut, bone caves near, 30 inscription of Ramses II., 249 ; Egyptian officer at, 256
;

Bashan, conquest of, 108 Bas-reliefs, Egyptian, 328

Bazri, expedition of

Bezaleel directs work on Tabernacle, 103,

;

Assyrian, 465
to,

105

Esarhaddon

406

Beersheba, Hagar at, 85 Behistun, sculptures ascribed to Semiramis, great inscript'on of Darius, 368, 369 432 Beit Walli, inscriptions of Ramses II., 248
;

Bezek, defeat of Canaanites Biban-el-moluk, see Thebes

at,

115

Bible chronology, 39, 46 ; science, 46 Bilit, or Mj'litta, female form of Bel, 454 temple, 4S4 worship, 499
;

Bilit

Taauth, 354, 499

;

Bel, Assyrian deity, 453

temple, 482, 485.

Bin, or Ao, Assyrian deity, 453

484, 485

temple,

See Bel-Merodach Belbaliddin, Babylonian general, 378

Belbitinic,

mouth of the
of,

Nile, 194

Bel-Dagon, books Belesis, see Phul

Bellas, see Balikh

502

Beletaras, see Belkatirassu

king of Babylon, defeats king of Assyria defeated at Ellasar, 373, 404, 469 Binlikhish I. (Bintanagbal), king of Assyria, 372, 470 name, 507 n. Binlikhish II. first appointed eponyms, 376
Bin-baliddin,

and

kills

Binlikhish

Belibus made governor of Babylon nacherib, 398

by Sen-

III., extent of empire, 382; Syria and Media ; statue his wife Sammuramat, 383

wars

in

Belkatirassu murders Asshurabamar, and usurps throne of Assyria, 376

Birs

Bithaiah,

Nimrud, 23 "daughter of Pharaoh which

took," 337
;

Belkudurussur, king of Assyria, defeated and killed by Babylonians, 373, 469 Bellabarisruk, regent of Babylon, 486 Bellabarisruk, king of Babylon, 488
Bel-likhish (Beltanagbal), king of Assyria,

Mered
;

372

Black races, habitat of, 54 physiognomy, 55 not mentioned by Moses, 64 Black Sea, Egyptian fleet on, 235 Esarhaddon's campaign, 405 Bnon, see Anon
;

Bel-Merodach, temple, 480

v/orship

of,

Boat, sacred, 312, 320

499 Belsharussur left in command of Babylon, 489 killed, 490 Belshazzar, see above
;

Bokenranf (Bocchoris),
276, 277

king

of Egypt,

Book of
Books,

the Dead, see Funereal Ritual

Assyrian,

on clay
447

tablets,

Benhadad,

see Benhidri

and note,

445

p.

154

grammars,

etc., 446,

INDEX.
Boorlos, Lake, 195 Borneo, traditions of creation, 9 Borsippa, 24 enclosed in wall of Babylon, 482 Nabonahid retires there, 489 surrenders to Cyrus, 490 worship of BelMcrodach, 499 Boulders, erratic, 44 Brick buildings in Chaldsea, 358 Assyria, Babylonia, 506 457 Brittany, fibrolite axes found in, 32 Bronze, implements in lake dwellings, 34 ; Assyrian work in, 427 Bubastis, twenty-second dynasty from, 273 Asiatic names, 273 sacred cats buried
;

515
still
;

remain, 113 coast cities uunon-intervention of Egyp115 tians) 264 final subjugation by Solomon, See also Syria 143.

some
take

n,

Canal, from Nile to

Red Sea, 245 menced by Necho, 285

;

recom485,

Canal, Assyrian, 427 Babylonian, 497 Canopic mouth of Nile, 194

;

Carchemish, name of, 22 Thothmes I. at, 229; revolts against Ramses II., 249;

Thothmes III. fortifies, stroyed by .Shalmaneser

;

232,

IV.,

363: 380
;

de;

tri-

at, 325 Bubilu, Susianian city, taken by Asshurbanipal, 412

bute to Tiglath-pileser II., 389 marches on, 184, 285 defeat of

at, 1S6,

Necho Necho

285

Bucolic mouth of Nile, 194 Budiel, king of Assyria, 372

Bulls,

Carians, Hamitic people, 58 Carnivora, period of great, 28

Caroline Islands, traditions

of, 11

winged Assyrian, 459 Bundehesh, sacred book of Zoroastrians,

10, 75

Carthage, government by Suffetes (judges), submits to Nebuchadnezzar, 477 117

;

Bur-el-salki,

eponym,
in

eclipse, 3S5

Burial of dead, Babylon, 492

371. 372. 468

Egj-pt,

300,

321

in

Carving by primitive men, 29 Caspian Sea, Tiglath-pileser I. at, 375 Shalmaneser IV. at, 381 Tiglath-pileser
;

II. at, 389, 391

Burnaburyash, king of Chalda;a, 354, 355,

Caste, in Egypt, 289

the various classes,

in

290
Caste, in Assyria, 423
371, 468
;

Bushmen, physiognomy of, 52 Bushur Asshur, king of Assyria,

;

Babylonia, 493

Catlin,

Mandan

traditions, 18
;

Byblos, Phoenician city, faithful to Ramses II., 249 Egyptian officer at, 256 tribute to Asshurnazirpal, 378 to Shalmaneser IV., 381 ; Sibitbaal king, 389
;

Cats, sacred, 325 dier, 326

killed

by Roman
394
;

sol-

Caucasus, wars of Sargon, from, 425 Celts, Japhetic race, 61

slaves

Cadiz, see

Gades
n.,

Cadytis (Kadesh), taken by Necho, 185 262

Caffres,

Chalaos, mentioned as king of Assyria by Moses of Chorene, 371

Chaldaea, traditions, 12, 14, 341, 502 fertility, 340 inliabitants, 341, 342 early history, 227, 347, 349 civilisation, 350 Median dynasty, 351 Ch.aldsean dynasty, 352, 468 ancient kings, 354 Susianian dynasty, 355, 468 royal canal, 356; queen, 357; subdued by Seti I., ise 243 revolt against Ram.ses II., 248 of power, 285 Egyptian and Arab dynasties, 361, 4G8 independence of A.ssyria, 360 monuments, 353, 357 buildings, 358 tombs, 359 astronomy, 360 art, 363 writing, 433. See caste, 493
; ; ; ;

physiognomy

of,

51
;

one of Calah, insurrection of Phul, 386 the cities of Tetrapolis, 348, 349 bronze palace of Shalmaneser dishes from, 363 temple of Adar Samdan, 377 paII. bronze throne lace of Shalmaneser IV. from, 427 Calasyrians, warrior class in Egypt, 291
;
;

Caleb, one of the spies, 106

Calf, golden, made by Aaron, 9S at Dan and Bethel, 151
;

set

up

Babylon, Mesopotamia
Chalybes, 37 supply AssjTia with 427 Chanceries, Assyrian, 420
;

Calneh, same

as

Ur,

80,

348

taken by

Sennacherib, 398

steel,

Cambyses, invasion of EgyTSt, 326 Camel, unknown in Egj'pt, 205 Canaan, son of Ham, 58 Canaan, land of invasion by Ahmes, 226
; ; ;

Characene, see Kar Dunyash Chedorlaomer, expedition to Palestine, 82,

;

condition of the country, 227 invasion of Amenhotep, 228 of Thothmes I., 229; of Thothmes III., 231 of Ramses of Seti I 243 of Ramses II., I., 241
: ;

10s, 352, 355 Chefren, see Shafra

Chemosh, tower
Solomon, 145 Cheops, see Kufu

of,

22

worship of by

249

people

make war on Hebrews,

iii

L L 2

5i6
Cherethites, or Cretans, a the Philistines, 124

INDEX.
name given
to

Cretans
Crocodile,
pilcscr

[see

Thothmcs
I.,

III., 235;

Cherethites], subdued by Pelasgl, 259

by

Cherub, 104, 459 (Kiriib) Chev, city, Amcnnieses assumes the crown,
262

sent

by Pinetsem
;

to
of,

272, 375

worship
491

Tiglath325

Cromlechs, 32
Ctesiphon, building
of,

Chinese traditions, 13 Chnuphis, or Num, 320 Chbaspes, src Itite Chomasbelus, king of Chaldaea, 349 Chons, son of Amen, 324 adventures of ark of, 271 Chord of Circle, Assyrian divisions of, 449
;

Cuneiform writing,
;

345, 431; varieties,

; ;

433;
;

hieratic originally hieroglyphic, 434 cursive, 434 phonetic, 435 syllabarium,

43f'

Curium, king of; tributary

to

Esarhaddon,

Chronology of Bible, 40, 41, 114 Chu-en Aten (Amenhotep IV.), religious
revolution, 238, 337

407 Cursive cuneiform writing, 435 Ethiopians, 57 Cush, son of Cutha, taken by Sennacherib, 398 temples worship of Nona or Zarat, 484, 485

Ham
;

Chushan-rishathaim, 117
;

n.,

272
;

Cilicians, Eg^fptians attack,

wars of 254 Sargon, 394 campaign of Asshurbanipal, 408 of Sennacherib, 404 Cimmerians submit to Esarhaddon, 405 invade Lydia defeated by Lydians and summoned by AsshurAssyrians, 408 banipal to invade Lydia, 409 Circle, Assyrian divisions of, 449 n.
; ;
; ;

panit, 499 besieges Cyaxares, succeeds Phraortes Nineveh, 415, 472 Cylinders, engraved seal, 359, 468, 492, Tuklat-samdan's captured, 373 506 Shalmaneser's re-captured by Sennache: ;

Citium, king of, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 inscription, 396 Civilisation, human origin of, 43 Egyptian, Assyrian, 417, Chaldtean, 357 289 Babylonian, 492 Clay tablets, Assyrian writing on, 434
; ; ; ; ;

rib, 404 Cyprus, subdued by Thothmes III., 235 to Esarsubmission to Sargon, 396 haddon, 407 Cyrus, king defeats and kills Neriglissar,
;
;

4S8
lon,

defeats

Nabonahidand takes Baby-

489

Cyrus, river, see

Kur
D.

books of, 445 influClimate, in Quaternary period, 26 ence on races, 50 of Tigro-Euphrates

;

basin, 340

Dadil, king of Colchis

Colchis,
ser
I,,

Egyptian colony, 235

;

Commagene,

expedition of Tiglath-pile374; of Asshur-nazir-pal, 378 of Sargon, 395 of Sennacherib, 398 of Commerce, of Neolithic period, 32 Egypt, 287 of Babylon, 495 Confession, negative in Ritual, 312
; ;

at Damascus, 390 Dagon, ark in temple of, 127 Dahi, see Dayi Damas, king of Curium, tributary to Esar;

haddon, 407

Damascus, Elamites pursued to, 82 taken by David, 139: revolution at, 163; taken by Jeroboam II., 169 Shalmaneser V.,
;
;

Congo, negroes

52 Conosconcoleros, name given by Greeks to Asshurbanipal, 414 Continents, form of in Quaternary period, 25 Contracts, Assyrian, 424
of,

Tiglath-pileser II., 172, 389; Ahaz at, 173, 390; rebels against Sargon, 393

385

Copper,

first

Corassid,

Arab

metal used, 36 city taken by Asshurbani-

Damietta, branch of Nile, 194 Damns, king of Amathus, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 Dan, city defeat of Chedorlaomer there, 82; sanctuary, 116; golden calf, 151 Dan, son of Jacob, 87 territory of tribe,
: ;

pal, 413 Cossseans in Chaldaea, 343 Assyrian, 428 Costume, Egyptian, 302 Babylonian, 492 Covenant, of Abram, symbolism of, 83
;

Cows, seven divine, 89 Coxcox, the Mexican Noah, 17 Mosaic narrative, Creation, 2 date of, 3 Egyptian ideas on, 320 Chaldaean 9
; ; ;

114 book Daniel, the prophet, 187, 423, 4S1 of, 489 n. Darius, the Mede, 490 Darius, son of Hystaspes takes Babylon, 490 destroys fortifications, 491 Dardanians, at Argos in place of Achsans in time of Ramses III., 266
;
;

traditions, 500

Dardanians, of Troy, assist Khitas against Ramses II., 249 Dashur, pyramid at, 215

:; ; ;

INDEX.
David, secretly anointed by Samuel, 134 plays harp to Saul, 134 kills Goliath, flies to forest of Hareth, 135 134 lament over Saul, 136: proclaimed king at Hebron, 136 king over all Israel alliance with takes Jerusalem, 137 Tyre takes Gath, 138 removes Ark, 138; foreign wars and conquests, 139; Bathsheba, 139 revolt and death of Absalom, of Sheba, 140 numbers the review of reign, people, 141 death contemporary with Her Hor and 141 Shamshi-bin, 273, 370; extent of empire,
; ; ; ; ;

517
given by Esarin

Dur Asshurakhiddin, name

haddon
to

Memphis, 279
built

Dur Asshurakhiddin,
Esarhaddon, 405

Syria

by

Dur Dur

Bilmati, see Sais

;

Kurigalzu, 356 taken by TiglathI., 375 Dur Sharyukin [Khorsabad], building of, decline of, 401 inscriptions from 397 palace, 457, 458, 461 392> 394. 425 Dur Yakin, taken by Sargon, 395, 470
pileser
; ; ;

Dyke

of

Menes, 203
list of,

142, 376

Dayi, people; subdued by Sennacherib, 401 Dead, book of the, see Funeral Ritual

Dynasties of Manetho,

197

E.
Ecdippa, submits to Sennacherib, 398 Eclipse of sun, 377, 448 of moon, 392, 448, 464
;

Dead
of

cities,

Sea, fertility of plain, 81 84

destruction

Debir,

taken

by Egyptians,

254

by

Hebrews, 112
Deborah, the prophetess, 119, 120 Debtors, treatment of by Hebrews, 102 by Egyptians, 300 by Assyrians, 424 Deification of king by Egj'ptians, 214, 294,
;

Eden, garden
Edfu, temples

of,

21

at,

336
;

Edomites refuse Hebrews passage, 107 tributary to Binlikhish III., 383 to Sennacherib, 399; revolt from Chaldaeans, 188
Edrei, 108

331

the contrary in Assyria, 418

;

Delta of Nile,
259
;

Lybian settlement, 195 thirteen kingdoms, 276 petty kings driven established by Assyrians, 278
; ;

Eglon, city of; people attack Hebrews,

III
;

capture,

n2

Eglon, king of Moab, oppresses Hebrews,

119
Egj'pt, description of country, 193 Nile, 194, 195 ; historians, 196 ; dynasties ot Manetho, 197 chronology, 198 monuments, 199 people Hamitic, 202 first and second dynasties, 203 ; third dynasty,
; ; ; ; ;

kingdom of by Tahraka, 279 out Milukhi, 394 Biblical Deluge, human race before, i antiquity of, 16, 43, 44 narrative, 5 limitation of extent, 6 theories, 43 traditions, 13 seq., 503; traces of, 43 Denderah, temples at, 336
; ; :
; ;

Denmark,

forests of, 33

Desert belt of Asia and Africa, interruptions in, 339 Determinatives, Egyptian hieroglyphic,
306, 307

Dictionaries, Assyrian, 445, 446 Dilala, Susianian god, 412

Din, Susianian city taken by Asshurbanipal, 412

Dinaites, see

Dayi

Dion, antediluvian king of Sippara, 502

Divorce in Assyria, 425 Djebel Barkal, see Napata Djendib, Sheik of Arabs, 380 taken by Djisda (Djeddah),
banipal, 414

Asshur-

domestic animals and art, 205 204 fourth dynasty great pyramids, 205 troubles, 207 fifth dynasty, 207 aristocratic government, 208 architecture and literature, 209; sixth dynasty, 210; civil discord, 211 art and civilisation of old empire; end of old empire, 212, 213; middle empire eleventh dynasty, 213 ; twelfth dynasty conquest of Arabia, 214: lake Moeris, 215; art, 216; thirteenth dynasty, 217; extension of frontier; level of the Nile, 218 Abraham, 81 fourteenth dynasty. Shepherds, 219 Joseph, 8g, 221 Jacob, 90 Hebrews, Theban art Shepherd monuments, 91 222 expulsion of Shepherds, 224 Ahmes; restoration of temples art, 225 eighteenth dynasty; new empire, 226 nations around Egypt, 227 Amenhotep I. in Palestine Thothmes I. defeats Rotennu,
; ;

Dodanim, son of Javan

Epirotes, 61

Dog-river, inscription of

Ramses

II.,

249

Dolmens, 32 Domestic animals of Neolithic period, 32 Dosche, mount, 235 Dravidian race driven from Hindustan, 52
Turanian, 63 344
;

228,360: Thothmes II.; ThothmcsIII. and Hatasu, 229 annals at Karnak, :>3o; war with Rotennu Gaza battle at Megiddo, 231 defeat of Rotennu, 232, Lebanon, Syria, Mesopotamia and 361
;

Africa,

233

fleet,

234

Ethiopia, 235
II.

monuments, 236; Amenhotep Mesopotamia; Thothmes IV.;

hotep hotep
III.,

Amen;

languages, 68

religion,

236; IV. 237;

;

Memnon,
;

Amen237 religious revolution;

Har-em-hebi,

Diunah, see Ad-dumu

Hebrews

Amentutankh

;; ;;

5i8
239; nineteenth dynasty,

INDEX.
Ramses
I.,

I.,

war with Khitas

Seti

241;

240; Set!
;

Merenphtah. wars with Remencn, 242 war with Khitas, Amorites, Rotennu
fleet,
; ; :
;

Elah, king of Israel, succeeds Baasha assassinated by Zimri, 155 Elam, son of Shem, 59. See Susianians
:

is

243 gold mines wells buildings, 244; canal Ramses II. [Sesostris], 245; oppresses Hebrews legend 246 facts, 247 rebellions, 248 first campaign, 249 long war, 254 peace, 252 poem, 250 ^lesopotamia subject, 256 peace 255 revolt of prisoners, 257 oppression, 258 Lybian invasion Merenphtah, 259 war and defeat of Lydians, 260 Exodus, 94, Merenrevolt under Osarsiph 95, 261 phtah in Ethiopia Amenmeses Merenphtah Siphtah, 262; Seti II.; end of entry of nineteenth dynasty, 263
;
;

Elath taken by David,

fleets at, 144
;

Solomon's 139 re-taken and fortified by

;

Elba,

Uzziah, 168 flint axes from Isle of, 32 Eleazar, son of Aaron, made high priest, 107 death and burial, 114
;

Elephantine, 207 monuments of Thothmes III., 236 of Amenhotep III., 237 made Eli usurps high priesthood, 125 suflete, 125 his sons, 126; death, 127
; ;

Hebrews

into

Palestine,
; ;

113,
;

263;

Nekht-set Ramtwentieth dynasty Takkaro Lybian s 264; ses III., Philistines, 265 war with Khitas Philissettlement of naval battle, 266 tines Philistines conspiracy, 267 chronology, 268; Ramses IV., 269; usurpation of high priests of Amen; Ramses XII. adventures of Ark of Chons, 270, 373 Her Hor in alliance with Ass>Tia, 271 twenty-second dynasty, 273 272, 373 Jeroboam flies to Shishak, 146 Shishak invades Judea, 152, 274; Azerch Amen invades Egypt and Palestine defeated by Asa, 153, 274 twenty-third dynasty invasion of Piankhi disorders, 275 Ethiopian twenty-fourth dynasty, 276 dynasty; Shabaka iShebek, So; invades Syria, 174, 277 defeated at Raphia, 175, 277, 393 destruction of Assyrian army, invasion of Esarhaddon, 179, 278, 399 Tahraka retreats to Ethiopia, 278, 407 invasion of Asshurbanipal, 279 Necho 280, 408; anarchy, 281; Amen-meri-nut Psammetik, 283; Dodecarchy, 282; mercenaries, 284 Necho defeats Josiah, defeated at Carchemish, 186, 184, 285 circumnavigation Nile canal 285, 457 of Africa, 285; Psammetik II., Napra;

Eliakim (Jehoiakim) made king of Judah by Necho, 185 submits to Nebuchadnezzar, 187 death, 187, 476 Eliezer sent to choose wife for Isaac, 85 predicts death of Elijah, the prophet, 157 Ahab and Jezebel, 160 stops messengers of Ahaziah to Ekron, 161 predicts succession of Jehu and Hazael, 163
;

EHm,

97

Elisha, son of Javan, Hellas, 6r Elisha, the prophet, brings about revolution in Syria, 163, 381 ; anoints Jehu as king,

163

EUasar, see Asshur

Elon, judge, 122 Elon, town, revolts against

Ramses
;

Eltheca (Eltekon), battle at

Eluli,

II., 249 taken by Sen-

nacherib, 399 king of Sidon, escapes from Sennacherib, 398 Embalming the dead in Eg>-pt, 321

hitand Ahmes, 286; art

;

Psammetik

III.

Persian invasion, 288 Egypt, castes, 289 deification of the king, Nomes, 297 organisation, 296 295 laws, 299 manners and Judges, 29S alphahieroglypics, 302 customs, 301 ideographics, 30s determinabet, 304 literature and science, tors, 306, 307 papyri, 315; 307; funeral ritual, 308 division of time, 317 religion, 317, 452 resurrection of the body and immortality animal triads, 324 of the soul, 321 sculptemples, 327, 334 worship, 325 sphinx, 331 pyramids, 330 ture, 328 tombs, 333 exports to labyrinth, 332 Assyria, 428. See Ethiopia Ehud delivers Hebrews, 119 Eileithya, monuments of Amenhotep III.,
;
; ;

Embroiderj', Assyrian, 427 Engineering operations, Assyrian, 423 English, race in America and Australia, 50 Eniel, king of Hamath, subdued by Tiglath-pileser II., 389; at Damascus, 390 Entef, name of many kings of eleventh dynasty, 213 Ephraim, son of Joseph, go inheritance of tribe, 113; defeated by Jephthah, 122
;

Ephraim, forest of, 140 n. Ephrath, or Bethlehem, Rachel dies

at,

88
:

Eponyms, in Assyria, in Yemen, 422

;

376, 386, 422, 446

Equinox, period of precession, 360 Erech;Warka\ 227 one of the cities of the Chalda;an Tetrapolis, 348 restoration of
;

statues, 352

ruins at, 353 temple, 354 taken by Sennacherib, 398 worship of Bilit-Taauth, 499
;

237

Ekron, remains untaken by Hebrews, 113 taken by Philistines, 124, 272 oracle at, Ekron, or Migron, 176, 399 161
;

Esau, son of Isaac, 86 at Mount Seir, 87 Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib, made hastens to king of Babylon, 404, 471 Nineveh, and compels murderers of Sennacherib to take flight, 404 campaign in Syria, Main Phoenicia, Sidon, 404
; ; ;

nasseh, 182, 405

revolt,

405

campaign

INDEX.
Media, and Persia palace at works at Babylon, 406 Cyexpeditions to Egypt, 278, 407 prus Assyrians driven out, 278 abdicates in favour of Asshurbanipal death, 407 Esneh, temples at, 336 Ethbaal made king of Sidon by Sennain Arabia,
;

519
of,

Gallas and Abyssinians, physiognomy

51

Nineveh
;

Gambul, Esarhaddon's war, 406 Gananat, town taken by Shalmaneser IV.,

380 Gardens, hanging, at Babylon, 480 Gath, remains untaken by Hebrews, 113; taken by Philistines, 124, 172 by Syrians,
;

cherib, 39S

Ethiopia, relations with twelfth Egyptian dynasty, 214 campaigns of Ameni, 217 subject to of Amenhotep I., 228 Thothmes III., 235 to Amenhotep III., Har-em-hebi, 229 peace with Seti 236 rebellion against Ramses II. I., 244 slave hunting, 257 long wars, 248 Merenphtah retires to, 262: Seti II. ininvasion of vades Egypt from, 263
;

167

by Uzziah, 168
at,

Gaza, Thothmes III.

231

Hebrews, 113;
settle
;

Philistines

untaken by allowed to

124, 272

taken by Philistines, near, 267 by Tiglath-pileser II., 3S9

:

Gazauatan, people revolt against Ramses

II.,

249
fortified

Geba

by Asa, 154
;

Egypt by Azerch-Amen
274
;

defeat,

153,

in,

high priests of Amen take refuge 273 invasion of Egypt by Piankhi, 276 Ethiopian dynasty in Egypt, 277 defeat at Raphia Ethiopians driven out of Egypt, 278 invade Egypt, 279 RotAmen, 2S0, 281 Amen-meri-nut, 2S2 Ethiopians e.xpelled by Psammetik, 283
;

Gebal, see Byblos

Gedaliah made governor of Judasa, 190 murdered, 191, 477

Genealogy of patriarchs, 40
Genesis, table of affiliation, 57 Gerah, 84, 85, 86

Psammetik
EgjTit

II.

inscriptions, 286.

See

Gergesenes join in revolt against Ramses

II.,

249
race, 62
;

Eulaeus, battle at, 410

Germans, Japhetic
of,

legends, 13

Euphrates, course of inundations Europe, alterations of white race

in,

340 50

language, 77, 78 Gerrha, Babylonian trade

Evechous, founder of Chaldaean monarchy,

349 Evil Merodach, king of Babylon, succeeds releases Jehoiakin, Nebuchadnezzar assassinated, 48S 187, 487 E.xodus, 95, 96, 261
;
;

to, 407 Gezer, built by Solomon, 143 Gheneh, road from, to Kos.seir, 211

Giammu,
379

chief killed

by Shalmaneser

IV.,

Ezekiel, the prophet, 481

Ezion Geber, Hebrews at, 106 taken bySolomon's fleets at, 144 David, 139
; ; ;

Jehoshaphat's, 161
F.

Gibeah, destruction of Benjamites, 116 Saul there, 131 garPhilistines at, 128 rison destroyed by Jonathan, 132 Gibeon, city, makes peace with Hebrews, taken by Shishak, 274 III Gibraltar, Tahraka's reported conquests, 278 lapses to Gideon, victory over Midian
;

man, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12 Fauna and Flora of Quaternary period,

Fall of

idolatry, 121

Gihon,

river, 21

of lake dwellings, 34 Fayoum, 194; origin of name, 216; ments of Ramses II., 245 Fire, discovery of use of, 11

26

monu-

Gilead, inhabitants defeat Ephraimites, 122 Giratbunda, part of empire of Binlikhish

III., 382 Glaciers of Quaternary period, 27 Gods of Egypt, 317; of Assyria, 452; of Susiania, 412

Fleet, Egyptian, 234, 243, 259, 266, 267 Hebrew, 144, 161 ; Babylonian, 497
Flint, see Stone

Golden image, 483, 486

Gold.smiths' work,
;

Fractions, Assyrian, 449 Funereal Ritual, 89, 203, 207 284 analysis, 308
;

Egyptian, 225
;

Assy-

revision

of,

rian, 427

G.

Gad, son of Jacob, 87

tribe settle east of

Jordan, 109 Gad, the prophet, David's adviser, 138 Gadara, people revolt against Ramses

Gomer, son of Japhet Gomorrha, 82 Gordyaian mountains, Goshen, go

Cimmerians, 61
19

II.,

249

Gades (Cadiz) submits

477

to

Nebuchadnezzar,

Governors of provinces, Assyrian, 419 Greek, race Japhetic, 61 legend.s, 9 language, 75 coasts subdued by Thothmes III., 235; mercenaries, 283; temples in Egypt, 287
; ; ;

520

INDEX.
in

Gungmi, king of Chaldsea, 356 Gurbaal, Arabs of subdued by Uzziah, 168

Guriiah, tombs

333 Gustaspi, sec Hystaspes

at,

Gyges, king of Lydia, sends embassy to

Asshurbanipal, 408 assists rebellion of Psammetik, 2S3, 409 invaded by Cimmerians and killed, 409
;

H.
Habakkuk,
the prophet, 186

Hagan, king of Yathrib, 406 Hadad, the Idumaean, revolts from Solomon, 146 Hadramaut, expedition of Esarhaddon to,
406

Egypt, 92, 246 Exodus, 95, 261 ; route through Desert, 96 numbers, 97 ; quails and manna, 97, 105; spies, 106; attack on Canaanites, 106 conquest of land east of Jordan, 108 census, log cross Jordan, iii, 263; take Jericho and battle of Ai monument at Ebal, iii coast Bethhoron, 112 division of land cities untaken, 115; idolatry, 98, 115, 121 116, judges or suffetes, 117 ; Othniel, 117; Deborah; Barak Gideon, Ibzan 120; Tola; Jair, 121 Jepthah Elon Abdon, 122 Samson Eli, 125 Samuel, 127 ; oppression by Mesopotamians, 117: Moabites, 119; Philistines, 119, 124, 125; Jabin, 119; Midianites, defeated at Ammonites, 121 120 ; Aphek, 127 victory at Mizpeh, 127 ; require aking, 130; Saul, 131. J>V(? Judah,
:
; ; ;

Hagar

Israel
flees

from

Sarah,

82

birth of

Ishmael, 83 Hail-stones at battle of Bethhoron, 112 n.

Hall of ancestors, from Karnak, 200

Ham,
59

family of, 57 driven out by Shem and Japhet, 58 first to leave original corruption fate of empires, centre, 58
;
;

Hebron, cave purchased by Abraham, 84, people attack Hebrews, Jacob, 91 8s HI capture, 112 David king, 136 Hedjaz, expedition of Esarhaddon, 406 of Nebuchadnezzar, 478 Hekali, city, taken by king of Babylon,
;
; ;

375, 404. 469

Hamanu,

in

Susiana, taken by Asshur-

Helbon (Aleppo), people of

revolt against

Ramses

II.,

banipal, 412

249

Hamath, taken by David, 139 by Jeroboam II., 169 Shalmaneser IV. at, 380; taken by Tiglath-pileser II., 389 by
:

Heliopolis, monuments at, 236; taken Pelasgi, 260 worship of IVInevis, 326
;

by

Hellenium

in

Egypt, 287
at,

Sargon, 393

Hermonthi.s, temples

336
class in

Hammamat
356, 48s

El, inscriptions at, 218

;

Hammurabi, king of Chaldaea

his canal,

Hermotybians, division of warrior Egypt, 291

;

Hanani, the prophet, 154 Hananiah carried to Babylon, 187 Hanun, king of Gaza, at Damasctjs, 390 revolt, defeat, and death, 393 Haphraim, city taken by Shishak, 274 Haran, Terah's migration, 80 Rebecca,
;

Her-hor, high-priest of Amen usurps crown, 272 alliance with Assyria, 272, 374
Heroopolis, see Zal

He.shbon, tributary to Thothmes III., 324 capital of Sihon, 108

Hespu

86

Jacob, 87

Har-em-hebi, king of Egypt, 239 Hareth, David in forest of, 135 Hatasu, sister of Thothmes II., guardian of Thothmes III., 229; conquests in Arabia, 230 Harosheth, 119 Hathor, Egyptian goddess, 320 Havilah, land of, 21

or Hesep-ti, king of Egypt, 203 Hezekiah, kingof Judah; succeeds Ahaz puts down idolatry, 173; destroys brazen serpent: passover, 174; prosperity, 175;
;

rebels against Assyria, 176, 399

to

Sennacherib, 177, 399:

;
;

Babylonian ambassadors
180
death, 181
;

submits 179; literary work,

;

illness,

Hieratic characters
rian,

Egyptian, 307

Assy-

Hawk,
king,

sacred, 326

Hazael murders
;
;

Benhidri and becomes conquers country east of 163 captures Gath, 167 Jordan, 166 defeated by Shalmaneser IV., 167, 381
;

434 Hieroglyphics, Egyptian, 302, 303; phondeterideographics, 305 etics, 304 Assyrian, 434 minative.s, 306, 307 Susianian, 434 Hilkiah, high priest, 183 Hillat (Hillah), outer city at Babylon, 481
;
;

Hazor, Jabin king

of,

of, 112, 119,

120; ruins
;

iig

Hebrews, sojourn in Goshen, gi tribal government, 91, 99, ii5 condition while in Egypt, 239. 337 the king who knew
;

Turanian population driven languages of, 68, 74 Hippopotamus, worship of, 325 Hiram, king of Tyre, an ally of David assists in an ally of Solomon 138 building the temple, 142 mans Solomon's
Hindustan,
south, 63
; ;

not Joseph, 92

papyri, 92

oppression

fleets,

144

sends

fleets to

Tarshish, 145

; ; ;

INDEX.
Hiram, pays
389
tribute to Tiglath-pileser II.,

521
410
; ;

Indabibi, Susianian general, king, 411

made

Hiram

the architect, 142

Hirata (Hira), taken by Asshurbanipal, 413 Hittites, see Khita Hobab, guide to the Hebrews, 105

India, early trade with, 144 Solomon's fleets, 145 ; Babylonian trade with, 496 Indians, traditions of, 12; higher castes Japhetic, 62 ; religion, 344

Indo-European

race, 62

languages, 73

Hophra, see Uahprahet Hor, mount dealli of Aaron Horeb, mount Moses at, 93
; ;

Inflected languages, 66, 69

at,

107

Interpreters, established

by Necho,

285,

first Horses, unknown in Egj'pt, 205 introduction, 229 want of in armies of

; ;

Israel, 158 n.

294 Ipsambul, temples of Ramses II., 245, 336 inscriptions, 248 Uahprahet, 286 Irak, attacked by Salmaneser, IV., 380
; ;

Horus, Eg)T)tian god, 320 Hosea, the prophet, 170 Hoshea, king of Israel, kills Pekah, 173, revolts imprisoned by Shalman391
;

Iranians, traditions

of, 12,

20; subdued

by

Turanians, 343, 504 Iranzu, king of Van, 393

Ireland, degeneration of population, 50
Irib-bin, king of Assyria, 376 Irib-marduk, governor of Babylon, 469 Irigibel, viceroy of Babylon, 402

eser VI., 174, 391

Hostages, treatment of by Egj'ptians, 223

Hottentots, tradition
II

as to

fall

of man,

Humbanigash, king of Elam, defeated by allied with Merodach Sargon, 392

;

Baladan, 395

by Negroes, 37 irshu-sin, king of Chaldaea, 354 Isaac, birth, 85 ; resides at Mamre

Iron, use of

and

Hunting expeditions of kings of Assyria,

429

Gerar, 87
Isaiah, the propbet, 169, 176, 180, 181, 275

Husbandmen,

class of in

Egypt, 293

IshbosTieth, son of Saul, proclaimed king,

Hyksos, see Shepherd kings Hystaspes, king of Commagene,

tribute
to

136

death, 137

pays
at

Tiglath-piJeser

1 1.,

389;

Damascus, 390

latnan, see CypRis

Ibis, sacred, 326

Ishmabaal, king of Gaza, cities from Judah given him, 400 Ishmael, son of Abraham, 85 murders Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, Gedaliah, 191, 477 Ishmidagan, king of Chaldsa, 356
Ishtar {Venusi, 454

Ibrim, inscription
Ibzan, judge, 122

at, 233,

236
to

and Nana, 455 See Ashtaroth

Isibia, city,

called also Zarpanit, sanctuary, 484, 485, 499.

;

Idalium, king 407

of, tributary'

E^rhaddon,
305
;

taken by Sargon, 394

Isi-em-chev, princess, 272

Isis,

Ideographic

characters,

Egyptian,
;

Eg^'ptian goddess, 320, 321

;

Assyrian, 435 Idolatry in household of Jacob, 87 among Hebrews, 98, 115, 116, 120, 121; SoloJeroboam's, 151 Rehomon's, 145 Baasha's, 155 boham's, 151 Omri's, of 156; of Ahab and Jezebel, i^T of Ahaziah, Jehoram of Judah, 163 161; ofAthaliah, 165; of Jehoram, 162
;

Israel, kingdom of; Saul king, 131 death of Saul, r36; stitution, 132
;

con-

David

and

Ishbosheth,
;

136

David alone

Solomon, 142 Jerusalem taken, 137 death of Solomon, 146 ; pro.sperity, 145 Rehoboam, 147 revolt under Jeroboam, 148 list of kings, 150 war with Judah
; ;

Iduma:ans, descended from Esau, 87 defeated by David, 139; revolt from

Jehoram, 163 167; by Uzziah, i68

;

subdued
;

by Amaziali, by Nebuchad-

nezzar, 468

Ikal-anu, temple
Ilgi,

of,

485
354
;

son of

Ur-Hammu,

his signet,

359
Ilu,

supreme god of Chaldxa

Asshur

in

Assyria, 452
Ilubid, see

Yaubid

a-ssa.ssinated Nadab 152 invasion Baasha, 153; war with Judah Elah, 155; Zimri of Benhidri, 154; Omri building of Samaria, 156 Ahab, 157; Jezebel and Elijah; victory over expedition to Syrians, 158 treaty, 159 Ramoth, 160; death of Ahab, 161; Ramoth Ahaziah, 161 Jehoram, 162 taken, 164; Jehu, 164; suppression of idolatry, 165; Syrian inx-asion Assyrians, victory Jehoahaz Jehoa,sh 166, 381 over Syrians; war with Judah, 167; Jerusalem taken; Jeroboam II., i68 conquest of Hamath and Damascus

defeat,

Imgur-bel, wall of Babylon, 469

169; interregnum; Zachariah

Shallum'.

522
;

INDEX.
Jehu, the prophet, 161 Jehu, king of Israel
Elijah, 163
; ;

Menahem, 170; Pckahiah Pckah, 171: deposed by Mciiahcni II. and restored,
389; alliance with Resin, 172; Assyrians carrj' captive tribes beyond Jordan, 173, 390; Hoshea, 173; Egyptian alliance, 174; invasion of Assyrians,
172,

named

as king

by

kills

Jehoram and Ahaziah,

;

174, 391

dom

end of kwigfall of Samaria of Israel, 175, 392- Sec Hebrews,

; ;

abolishes worship of Fjaal, 164 163 defeated by Syrians vassal to Shalmandeath, 167 eser IV., 166, 381 Jephthah, defeats Ammonites; his daughter,
;

121 188

n,

Judah Israel, name given

Jeremiah, the prophet, 182, 183, 185, 186,

to

Jacob, 88

Issachar, son of Jacob, 87; territory of tribe, 113 Ithodagon, king of Paphos, tributary to

Esarhaddon, 407 Ilite, river; passage of Assyrians, 412

Izirti, city
;

Jeroboam, promoted by Solomon flies to made king of Israel at Egypt, 146 Shechem, 149 Idolatry, 151 death, 153 Jerusalem, said to have been founded by Shepherds, 224; taken by David,^ 137;
; ; ; ;

taken by Sargon, 394

J.

temple
152
;

taken by Shishak, built, 143 named on monuments, 274 threat;

ened by Hazael, 167

;

Jabesh Gilead, expedition against, 116 Jabin, king of Hazor, 112, 119, 120
Jacob, son of Isaac, 86 obtains birthright, 87; Leah and Rachel, 87; name changed, 88 goes to Egypt, 90 death and burial
;

taken by Jehoash, besieged by Sennacherib, 177, 399 168 occupied by Necho, 185 identified with twice taken by NebuCadytis, 185 n. chadnezzar, 187, 476 revolt and siege, destruction, 190, 477 188, 189, 477
;

at
Jair,

Hebron, 91
judge, 121

Jezebel, wife of Ahab, 157 murders both, 160 killed by Jehu, 164
;
;

Na-

Jezreel,

Jehoram and Ahaziah by Jehu, 164

killed there

Jamnia, Sargon crosses sea of, 396 Jarmuth, people attack Hebrews, iii
Japhet, race of, 60, 61, 62 Japhetos, son of Xlsuthrus, 504

Joab, David's captain, kills Abner, 137 put to death by Solomon, 142
Joash, see Jehoash Joel, the prophet, 169

Javan, son of Japhet, 61

;

Jebusites attack Hebrews, in; remain Jerusalem, 113 conquered by David, 137

Joktanian Arabs, 85
Jonah, the prophet, 169 Jonathan, son of Saul, defeats Philistines death, 13s at Gibeah, 132
;

Jeconiah, see Jehoiachin Jehoahaz, king of Judah succeeds Josiah made prisoner by Necho, 185 succeeds Jehu Jehoahaz, king of Israel defeated by Syrians, 166
;
;

Jehoash, king of Judah saved and made king by Jehoiada, 165 repairs temple, lapses to idolatry and murders 166 Zachariah; death, 167 Jehoash, king of Israel succeeds Jehoahaz, war with defeats Syrians, 167 166 death, takes Jerusalem Judah, 167
;
; ;

Jordan, Hebrews cross, in slaughter of Ephraimites at, 122 Joseph, son of Jacob, 87, 88 dreams, 89 promoted by Apepi, 89 Egyptian name, death, 91 policy, 90 go, 221 Josiah, king of Judah, succeeds Amon, death at restores temple, 183 182
;
; ; ; ; ; ;

Megiddo, 184
Joshua, victory over Amalek, 98 sent as a spy, 106; succeeds Moses as leader, death; tomb, 114 109 strategy, in n. Jotham, regent during illness of Uzziah,
; ; ; ;

168

Jehoiachin,

succeeds king of Judah beseiged and taken by Jehoiakim Nebuchadnezzar, 187, 476 Jehoiada, high priest, kills Athaliah and proclaims Jehoash, 165 Jehoiakim, see Eliakim married to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat Athaliah, 160; succeeds Jehoshaphat, 162; idolatry and reverses, 163 death, 164 Jehoram, king of Israel succeeds Ahaziah,
; ; ; ; ;

war restores temple, 171 king 168 with Israel death, 172 Jubilee, year of, loi Judah, son of Jacob, 87 inheritance of
;
;
;

tribe, 113

Judah, kingdom of; Rehoboam, 148;

of kings, 150
; ;

list
;

takes Jehu, 164

162
; ;

Ramoth,

164

killed

by

invasion of Shishak, 152 Abijam war with Israel, 152 Asa puts down idolatry victory over Zerah, 153 war with Israel, 154 Jehoshaphat, 155 attack on alliance with Israel, 160 Moab Jehoram, 162 revolt of Libnah ;.
;

Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; succeeds alliance administration, 156 Asa, 155 with Ahab expedition to Ramoth, 160; fleet at Ezion Geber, 161
;
;

Arab
Jehu,

invasion, 163
;

Ahaziah
; ;

killed

by
;

Jehoash, 165 Athaliah 164 murder of Ze. repair of temple, 166 chariah Amaziah defeat of Iduma;ans
; ; ;

INDEX.
war with
168
;

523

Israel, 167
;

Jerusalem taken,
;

Kedor-nakhunta, king of Elam, 402

Jotham regent, 168 Jotham king, 171 war with Israel Ahaz, 172 meets Tiglath-pileser at Damascus,
Uzziah
;

Kehak people invade Egypt,

Kekeu,

260

Hezekiah, 173 Passover, 173, 389, 390 174 revolt from Assyria, 176 ; invasion
; ; ;

of Egypt, 204 ; introduces worship of Mnevis, 326 tomb, 331

;

kmg

of Assyrians,
;

177,

399;

plague,
;

179;
;

Babylonian alliance, 180, 400 Manasseh, captivity of Manasseh, 182, 405 181

Kentucky, remains in, 30 Keturah, Abraham's wife, 86 Kharkhar, part of dominion of Binlikhish
III.,

Passover, 183 Scythians, battle of Me184 Egyptian invasion giddo, 1S4, 285, 472 Jehoahaz Eliakim, 185 Chaldsean invasion, 186 Jerusalem taken, 187, 476 Jehoiakim capture of Jerusalem ; Zedekiah, 187, 477 revolt captivity of siege capture of city remains of people people, 190, 477, 481 Egypt, 191 ; Chaldaeans and fly to Elamites settled in country-, 405 Judgment, last, Egyptian belief in, 322
:

Amon
; ;

282
god, incarnate in goat of

Josiah

Khatti, see Khita

Khem, Egyptian

Mendes, 326 Kheper, personification of sun, 319

Khita
241

Judges of Israel, 117; in Egypt, 298; in Assyria, 422

Judges, Book
of,

118

chronology, 119

habitation of, war with 241 Seti I., 242; treaty of peace, 243, 244; revolt against Ramses II,, 248; war, peace, 253 ; renewed war, 254 250 peace, 255 assist rebels under Osarsiph, 262; wars with Hebrews, iii; invade Syria with Lybians,255 defeated before Kadesh, 266 tributary to Tiglath-pileser I-) 375; subdued by Asshurnazirpal, 378
(Hittites),

220,

228

war with Ramses

I.,

K.

Khitasar,

Kadesh

;Cadytis), king of, in alliance with Rotennu, 231 ; taken, 233 ; occupied by Seti I., 243; revolt against Ramses II.,
;

Ramses

II.,

war king of Khitas 254 peace, 255

: ;

with

Khorsabad, see Dur Sharj'ukin

Khulli, people in Asia Minor, subject to

Khitas from assist 248, 249, 253, 254 Osarsiph, 262 ; battle before, 266 ; taken

Sargon, 393

by Necho, 185 Kadesh Earnea, 105

n.,

106

Kikupan, temple, 485 Kileh Sherghat, see Asshur

Kadu

IMalcha, king of Edom, at Damascus, 390 Kamosh-nadab, king of Moab ; tributary

to Sennacherib, 399

Kinda

kirbu, Susianian god, 412

list of,

Kings, Assyrian,

507
bulls,

Kames, king of Egypt, 221, 223 Kamon taken by the Egyptians, 254. Kanah, river, battle between Egyptians and Rotennu, 231
Karahardash, king of Babylon, 372, 468 Karatadash, king of Babylon, 371, 469 Kardunyash, rebellion in, 402 ; Esarhaddon's campaign, 405 Kardunyash, port of, 486 Karkar, battle at, 380; taken by Sargon,
393

Kirshamash, Susianian god, 412 Kirub, name of Assyrian winged 104, 459

Kish, city in Chaldsea, taken by Sennacherib, 398 Kishon, battle at river, 120

Kitchen Middens, 33 Kittim, son of Javan, Cyprus, 61 Kolaiah, El, temple at, 484 Korah, revolt of, 107
Korte, 235 Kosseir, road
to,

21

Karnak, "hall of ancestors" from, 200; obelisk of Hatasu, 229 annals of Thothmes III., 230, 233 poem, 234 buildings
; ;

Koyundjik, see Nineveh Kufu, king of Egypt great pyramid built

;

by, 205

of Amenhotep III., 237; Ramses I., 241; of Seti I., 241, 245; of Ramses II., 245 of Sheshfmk, 274 library, 307 Karneter, Egyptian Hades, 308, 322
: ;

Kui, city tributary to Tiglath-pileser 389

II.,

Kumani,

see

Amanus
;

Kumneh,
Kur,

fortress of, 214, 235

Abyssinia, limit of empire of III., 236 Karsha, Susianian god, 412

Karo,

in

river,

Syrians transported to

situa-

Amenhotep

tion of, 173, 390

249 Kedemoth, in Judah, taken by Shishak, 274 Kedor-mabug, king of Chald;ca, 355

Katti, revolt against

Ramses

II.,

Kedornakhunta, Elamite king of Babylon, 352, 3S5

Kurdistan, subdued by Thothmes III., 230 Kurigalzu I., king of Chaldaia, 355 Kurigalzu II., installed as king by Asshuru-ba!at, 372 Kurnah, inscriptions at, 254

524
Laborosoarchod, see Bcllabarisruk

INDEX.
Larsam, sec Senkereh Law, of Moses, 98
Assyria, 424, 446

of Egypt,
in,

299

ot

Labynetus, see Nabonahid

I^abyrinth, 215, 332 Lachish, people attack
ture,

Lebanon,

flint

remains

30

campaign

of

Hebrews, iii

cap-

Thothmes
Lebanon,
481

III., 283

112; Amaziah assassinated there,

trees

from in Babylonian temples,

;

Sennacherib at, 177, 178, 400 Laconians invade Egypt, 261

168
;

Laish, capture

of,

116

Lake

dwellings, 34, 36 Lakhir, Suzub imprisoned there, 402

Levitical cities, Levi, son of Jacob, 87, 88 114 revolts from Libnah, capture of, 112
;

Lamech,

Jehoram, 163 Library at Karnak, 307

445
;

of Asshurbanipal,
to

5
of,
;

Languages, families
primitive state, 67

origin of, 66 65 original identity of,

;

Limenium, king
haddon, 407

of,

tributary

Esar-

73

Languages, Abyssinian, 72
;

Afifghan, 75
; ;

Limur-patis-Asshur, see Athribis

;

Albanian, 76 73 Saxon, 78 Annamese, 67 Arabic, 71 Arian, 74 Ariac, 74 Aramaean, 70 Armenian, 75 Assyrian, 70, 72, 3.i2, 346,
; ; ;
;

Algerian,

Anglo;

Lions, winged Assyrians, 459 Loans, among Hebrews, 102 in Assyria, 424 300
;

in

Egypt,
;

Bengali, 75 P5eloochee, 75 Borussian, 76 Berber, 73 Bischari, 72 Bulgarian, 77 ; Burmese, Breton, 78 CashCachub, 77 Canarese, 68 67 Chaldsean, Celtic, 74, 78 merian, 75 Chinese, 67 Corean, 344, 357, 433, 445 Danish, Cymric, 78 68 ; Cornish, 78 Dutch, 78 Dravidian, 68, 344 78 Erse, English, 78 Egyptian, 72, 302 Esthonian, 68 Etruscan, 76 Fin78 FrancoFlemish, 78 landish, 68, 344 Frison, 78 Gaelic, nian, 78 ; French, 76 German, Gaulish, 78 Galla, 72 78 77 Gheber, 75 Ghez, 71, 72 Gothic, 77; Greek, 76; Grison, 76; Guanchi, Himyariti, 71, 72 Guzerati, 75 73 Indian, Hindustani, 75 Hindui, 75 Iranian, 74 Indo-European, 73 74
431, 445
; ; ;
;

Lot, emigrates with prisoner, 84

Abram,

81

taken

Lud, son of Shem, 60 Ludim, 202, 278

Luxor, see Karnak Lybian, mountains, 194
;

coast subject to

Thothmes III., by Seti I., 244

;

invasion repulsed 235 invasion under Ramses defeat by Merenphtah, 260 II., 259; attack on Egypt, 265; Tahrakah, victories, 278 family of Psammetik
; ;

Lycians assists Khitas against Ramses XL, 249 Lydians, Gyges sends embassy to Asshurassists Psammetik, 283 ; banipal, 408 invasion of Cimmerians, 409
;

78; Italian, 76; Japanese, 68; Kurdish, Kordofan, 72 Japygian, 76 Lettic, Latin, 76 Lapponese, 68 75 Mahratta, 75 Ma76 Lithuanian, 76 Magyar, 68 Manx, 78 lagasy, 72 Median, 344, 433 Messapian, 76 Nabathean, 70 Neo-Latin,74, 76 Nepalese, 75 Norse, 78 Nubian, 72 Obotrite, 77 Oscan, 76 Ostiac, 68 Pali, 74 Parsee, Pelasgic, 74, 75, 76 Pehlevi, 75 75 Polab, 77 Polish, 77 Persian, 75, 433 Portuguese, 76 Pracrit, 74 Proven9al, Rouman, 76 Russian, 77 Sabaean, 76 Samaritan, 70 Samoi70 Sabine, 76 Semitic, 70 Sanscrit, ede, 68 74 Slavonian, Siamese, ,67 Servian, 77 Sorabian, 77 Slavonic, 76, 77 74 Susianian, 433 Swabian, Spanish, 76 SyroSyriac, 70 Swedish, 78 78 Chaldee, 70 Tamil, 63 Tartar, 68, 77 ThiTelinga, 68 Tartaro-finnish, 68 Tschekh, 77 Tuarick, 73 betan, 67 Turkish, 68 UraTuranian, 68, 344 Uralo-finnish, 68, 77, 344 brian, 76
Irish,
;

M.
Madai, son of Japhet, 61 Madaktu, city, the king of Elam abandons,
402
;

Ummanaldash

retreats from, 412

Madelein, remains in grotto at, 29 Magic, use of in conspiracy against

ses III., 267 lonia, 494
;

RamBaby-

in Assyria, 448

in

Magog, son
getae
;

of Japhet
in

Scythians

Massa-

Turanians, 62

Mahanaim,
274

Judah, taken by Shishak,

Mahomet, descended from Ishmael, 85 Makkedah, 112 Malays, physiognomy of, 52 Mammalia, distribution of species, 53 Mamre, Abraham and Isaac reside under
grove, 82

Manasseh, son of Joseph, 90

settle east of

half tribe

Jordan, 109 Manasseh, king of Judah, 180

succeeds

Welsh, 78

Languages

in

Zend, 75 Zingari, 75 official use in Assyria, 420

;

Hezekiah

idolatry,
;

Larnica, see Citiura

restoration, 182, 404 haddon, 406, 471

181 ; captivity and tributary to Esar-

INDEX.
Mandans, traditions of, 9, 18 Manetho, Egj-ptian Historian
of Deluge, 15 197, 206, 210
;

525

no mention

Medicine, among Egyptians, 302, 316 Assyrians and Babylonians, 447

his

list

of dynasties, 196,

Medinet Abu,

see

Thebes
;

Shepherds, 219 Maniya, king of the Dahi, 401

;

Mediterranean, Egyptian fleet on, 234; conquest of coasts, 235 navy of Pelasgi,
243
;

Manna, 97 Manners and customs of

of Assyrians, 426
;

Egi^pt'^ns, 301 of Babylonians, 492

;

Manufacturers, Egyptian, 301 Babylonian, 495 427

;

Assyrian,

Map,

EgjTjtian, 315

Megiddo, battle betu-een Egyptians and capture of city, 232 Rotennu, 231 death of Ahaziah built by Solomon, 143 battle, and death of Josiah, there, 164 taken by Shishak, 274 184, 285, 472 tradition, Melchizedek and Abram, 82
;
;

Marah, 97
Marduk-balatirib, king of Babylon, 382, 470

83

n.

Memnon,
Memphis,

statue so called, 237

;

Marduk-baliddin, see Merodach-baladan Marduk-belusati, usurps throne at Babylon, 380

Marduk-inaddinshu, king of Babylon, 380 Marduk-idin-akhe, king of Babylon, revolts takes Hekali, from Tiglath-pileser I. 469 statues of gods taken and
;

; 375, restored, 375, 404 Marih, king of SjTia, conquered

by Binlik-

hish III., 383

Mashnaki, iee Mosynoeci Mashuash (Maxyans), invade Egypt, 259 mersettle in Delta defeated, 260
; ;

third foundation 203 of, fourth dynasty, 205 204 capital under fourth dynasty, 206 monuments of Thothmes III., 236; of Ramses taken by Lybians and Pelasgi, II., 245 residence of Merenphtah, 261 260 discoveries in taken by Seti II., 263 taken by Esarhaddon Serapeum, 275 Necho made king, 278 receives name taken by of Dur-Asshurakhiddin, 279 Tahraka, 279 temples of Ahmes, 287 ruins, 336 tombs, 333 Mena, name applied to Shepherds, 220

dynasty,

Menahem,
ria

first

261 cenaries, invasion, 266

;

accompany
;

Philistine

and Tiphsah

king of Israel takes Samatreaty with Phul, 170 ;

;

furnish kings to Egypt, 276 Psammetik, 282 incorporated with warrior class, 291
;

death, 171

Menahem

Masis, mount, 19 Matan-baal, king of Arvad, 380

II. deposes Pekah, 172, 389 Mendes, goat of, 326 Menes, founder of Egyptian monarchy,

203

Mathan, king of Nabathcans, joins rebellion of Nabubelshum, 409; defeated, 413;

pardoned, 414 Mathan-baal, king of Aradus,
at

Menkara, king of Egj-pt, 205

ritual,

revises

207

Damascus,

Mentemsaf, king of Egypt, 211 Menzaleh, lake, 195

Mercenaries, in Egy'pt, 283, 284, 292

390 Mattaniah, see Zedekiah Maurmuiu, king of the Lybians, 260, 261 Maut, Egyptian goddess, 319, 324

Mautnur, king of the Khitas, Maxyans, see Mashuash Mazdeism, traditions of, 10
Measures, Assyrian, 449

249, 254

Mered, of tribe of Judah marries daughter of Pharaoh, 337 Merekh, see Milukhi Merenphtah, one of the names of Seti I. ,242 Merenphtah, succeeds Ramses II.; war Exodus with Pelasgi and Lybians, 259 revolt of Osarsiph, of Hebrews, 95, 261
;
;

Mecca, foundation of, 149 Medes, 61 partly Turanian, 343: language, 344; Median dynasty at Babylon, 351, 376 subconquest by Assyrians 355 dued by Asshurnazirpal, 378 invaded by Shalmaneser IV., 379, 380, 381 Shamashbin rules over, 382 revolt under Arbaces, 386; Tiglath-pileser II. makes war on, 391 wars of Sargon, 394 of
; ; ; ;

262

Merenphtah
mescs, 262
;

succeeds AmenSiphtah dethroned by Seti II., 263

;

Merodach
;

(Jupiter), 454, 481

Merodach-baladan I. revolts against Sargon defeat at Dur-Yakin, 395, 470

Merodach-baladan II. puts Agises to death, sends ambassadors to Hczekiah, 397 dethroned by Sennacherib, i8o, 400
;
;

of Esarhaddon, Sennacherib, 398, 400 CyPhraortes invades Assyria 406 Asia Minor a.xares and Nabopolassar Medes invade Assubdued, 415 Nineveh taken and destroyed, syria Medes Cuneiform writing, 433 416 subjugated by Persians, 487
;

180, 39S,

400

Merom,

battle at, 112

Merou, mount, 20, 21 Meshech, son of Japhet

Moschi, 61

Mesisl-mordach, king of Babylon, 402

526
:

INDEX.
Molochram, king of Edom, tributary
Sennacherib, 399 Mongolians, physiognomy
of,

Mesopotamia, nations of 227 subdued by Thothmes III., no, 232; by Amenhotep II., 236 by Amen-hotep III., 236; tinder Ramses I., 240 subdued by Seti 1.,
;

to

52

243

nominally subject, 270 Ram248, 249 physises XII. and Ark of Chons, 270 geolog>', 340 constant cal features, 339 struggle with Egypt for supremacy, 341
;

subject to

Ramses

II.,

248

revolt,
;

Monogenistic theory, 48 Monosyllabic languages, 67 Monotheism in Egypt, 238 Month, Egyptian god, 324

early government, 350.

;

See Chalda;a

Months, Eg>'ptian,
Assyrian, 451

231, 268

Hebrew and

Assyria Babylon Metals, art of working, 35, 36; use forgotten by Polynesians, 37 Assyrian work 111,
;

Moschi, subdued by Asshuma2irpal, 378 Moses, birth of, 93 flies to Midian, 93 called t.) lead Hebrews, 94 law of, 98
;

427

Metempsychosis,
Ritual, 314

doctrine

of

Funeral
n.

fixes limits of territory, 1 10 death and burial, lates law

_ ;

recapitu-

no
cities,

Methuselah, date of his death, 46

;

Mugheir, ruins at, 80 n., 348 Municipal government of Assyrian

420

Mexicans, civilisation of, 16 traditions, 17 Micah, the prophet, 180 Micaiah, the prophet, 160 predicts death
;

Munna,
382

part of empire of Binlikhish III.,

of Ahab, 161

Muntuhotep, name of kings of eleventh

;

Midian, son of Abraham, 86 defeat of by Gideon, 121 Migron, king of, made prisoner by HezeSee Ekron kiah, 176, 399.
Mildish,

dynasty, 213

Mushanet (Mosynoeci) assist Khitas against Ramses II., 249 submit to Esarhaddon,
;

405

Mount (Nipbates), revolt among subjugation, 394 inhabitants, 393 Milhekal, controller of Assyrian palace, 419
;

Mutakkil Nabu, king of Assyria, 374 Muthon, king of Tyre, 390 revolts with
;

Pekah
Mysians, 249

submits, 391

Milik, Assyrian minister of state, 419 Military operations of Assyrians, 423

of Egypt Milukhi, kingdom in king of Ashdod takes refuge there, 3g4 tributary to Sargon, 395 gold, 244 Mines, copper, 205, 211, 215

Mylitta, see Bilit

assist

Khitas against Ramses

II.,

Delta

Mysteries, Eleusinian, 312

N.
Nabathea, revolt in, 409, 413, 4^4 Nabonahid, king of Babylon his prayer, retreats to defeated by Cyms 488
;
;
;

Miracles, at entry of tine, 112 n.

Hebrews

into Pales-

Misael, carried to Babylon, 187

Mishcan

(in

Tabernacle), 103

Mishpat, En, 105 Misiandi (Matieni), rebel against Sargon,

393

Borsippa, 4S9 surrenders, 490 Nabonassar, king of Babylon, 470 Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, revolts
;

Misu, part of empire of Binlikhish III.,

382
Mitatti, king of Sagartia, 394 Mitenti, king of Ashdod, his submission
to Tiglath-pileser II. at Damascus, 390 tributary to Sennacherib, 398
;

^^^^^ Assyria, 184, 415, 47^ Babylon ; 416, 475 works at Nitocris, 473 Naboth, murdered by Jezebel, 159 Nabu, king, inscriptions and statue of, 363

against

'

Nineveh,

Mizpeh, fortified by Asa, 154 Mizraim, son of Ham, 58 Mnevis, bull, 326

Nabubalarishkun, son of Merodach-baladan, captured by Sennacherib, 403 Nabubalidin, king of Babylon, defeated

Moab, son of Lot, 84 people not attacked by Hebrews, 107 defeated by David,
;
;
;

by Asshurnazirpal, 378, 469 Nabubelshum rebels against Assyria made king of Babylon; defeated by
;

Asshurbampal,

409,

471

138; invaded and conquered; invade Juda;a, 162 tribute to Sennacherib, 399 invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, 188, 478 Modern cuneiform writing, 435
;

Moeris, lake, 215

411; kills himself; his head 413 Nabupakidilani made viceroy of Babylon by Sargon, 396 Nabushapikzir, king of Babylon, 375

Susiana, exhibited,

Mokattam, mount, quarries at, 225 Moloch, worship of by Solomon, 145 Manasseh, 181

by

Nabuzirshimtat erects kingdom in Lower Chaldsa subdued by Esarhaddon, 405

;

Nadab, son of Jeroboam,

assassinated, 153

INDEX.
Naharaina, Naharaim, sec Mesopotamia Nahar Malka, or Nahar Hammurabi
canal, 356, 485, 497

527

Nergal (Mars), 454, 485

Nergal-sar-uzur, see Neriglissar
Neriglissar succeeds Evil-Merodach palace defeated by Persian.s, 488
;

his

Nahid Marduk made king Nahor, brother of Abram,

in

Chalda;a, 405

81

Nibkhaz, temple, 483

Nidintabel, revolt
of,

Nahum,

the prophet, 180

of,

490

Names, meaning
382

4 n.
III.,

Nile, Eg>-pt the gift of;

mouths

of,
;

194

Namri, under dominion of Binllkhish

Nana, see Ishtar Napata [Djebel Barkal), body of Assyrian chief hung there, 236 temple, 237 A2erch-Amen, 274 inscriptions, 275,
; ;

inundation, 195 racts, 211 level Red Sea, 245

;

boats on, 208 cataof, 218 ; canal from to

Nimrod,

58, 348

Nimrud
457
;

(Calah), obelisk, 379 ; excavations, palace of Asshurnazirpal, 458

of,

281

invasion from, 276

;

Nineveh, building
territory of

Naphtali, son of Jacob, 87

tribe, 113

Ninus by Moses of Chorene, 371

of Rotennu, 227
;

called city king pays tribute to

348, 349, 365
;

Naphtuhim, 202 Napshu, Susianian god, 412 Naramsin, king of Chaldsea, 355 Nathan, the prophet, prevents David from building the Temple, 138 reproaches David for his crime, 139 Naucratis, Greek colony at, 287 Nazibugash assassinates Karahardash, and killed by usurps throne of Babylon
; ;

Thothmes
II.,

236
;

III., 233, to Seti

234; to
I.
;

Amenhotep
with

alliance

residence of Asshurlikhish, siege, 386 fall and destruction, 385 387 rebuilt by Sennacherib his palace, palace of Esarhaddon, 406 401 of Asshurbanipal, obelisks from 415 Thebes, 280 siege by Medes and Babylonians, 415 destruction, 416 name lost ruins discovered, 417 slave market, 425 outer wall, 457
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
;

Hei-hor;

Asshur-u-balat, 372, 468

Ninip, see

Adar
colony on
site

Nebo, mount, Moses dies on, no Nebo, Babylonian god, 359, 383, 484 Nebuchadnezzar I. invades Assyria and
defeated, 374, 469

Ninus, 417
is

Roman

of Nineveh,

Ninus and Semiramis, legend of, 364 Ninus named as king of Assyria by Moses
of Chorene, 371 Ninyas, son of Semiramis, 369 Nipur (Niffer), capital of Accad, 342, 348, temples at, 354, 485 fortified by 353 Binbaliddin, 373, 469 taken by Sennacherib, 398 wqrship of Bilit Taauth, 499
;

Nebuchadnezzar II. defeats Necho at Carchemish invades Syria, 186, 285, 475
;
;

re-enters Syria takes Jerusalem second siege and capture, 187, 476 retreats, last siege, capture, and de188, 477 struction of Jerusalem, 189, 190, 477 campaign in Phoenicia, Iduma;a, and Arabia, 477, 478 buildings, walls, 479, 481 palaces, gardens, and temples, 22, 23, 480, 482 ; madness and death, 486
; ; ; ;
;

Nebuzaradan destroys Jerusalem, 190, 477 Necho, prince of Sais, vassal king of Memphis, 278, 407 sent to Egypt by Asshurbanipal, 408 son Psammetik
;
;

Nisroch, 456 protector of marriages, 425 Nissha (Nissa), subject to Tiglath-pileser II., 391 Nitocri.s, wife of Nabopolassar, 473
;

Nitocris, sec Neitaker

Nivit-bcl, wall of Babylon, 482

made king

and Necho, son of Psammetik, king of Egypt, invades Syria battle at Megiddo de;
;

of Athribis made prisoner put to death, 280, 408

;

Noah,

family of, 56 6, 15 Nofrehotep, name of kings of thirteenth dynasty, 217

;

feat of Josiah,

184,

285,

472

siege of

Nofre-t-ari,

Carchemish
186, 285, 475

defeat by Nebuchadnezzar,
in,

queen of Egypt, 225 Nomes, Egyptian, 297

;

Notation, sexagesimal

Assyrian, 449

Nedjid, campaign of Nebuchadnezzar 47S Neferkera, king of Egypt, 204, 211

Neitaker, queen of Egypt, 211 Neith, P2g>'ptian goddess, 319

Nub, Egyptian god, 320

Nubia, inscription of Osortasen
alliance
I. at, 214 subject to Thothmes III., 230; inscriptions at Ibrim, 235 inscriptions at Amada, 236 ; inscriptions of Seti I., 244; of Ramses II., 245 Asiatic people transported to, 2S7 Num, Egyptian god, 320
;

of
;

Ahmcs,

225

Nekht-set, king of Egypt, 264 Neolithic period, 30, 34

Ner, Chaldajan period of 600 years, 360; Assyrian measure, 449

Nut, Egyptian goddess, 325

528

INDEX.
Paran, desert
of,

105

Cannes, 34s head of first

;

sacred books of, 444, 502 Assyrian Triad, 453 temple

;

Parlikira, Susianian god, 412

of,

483, 485

Parthia, subdued by Binlikhish III., 382 by Tiglath-pileser II., 391; Sargon's

Obelisk, Nimnid, 379 Og, king of Bashan, 108

Ombos, monuments

at, 236,

336
;

campaign, 394 Sennacherib, 398 Parsua, see Parthia Pasht, goddess of Bubastis, 324
;

Omri, general, at siege of Gibbethon, 155 builds kills Zimriand becomes king, 156 Samaria war witli Syria, 156 Onaerges, king of Limenium, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 Onomatopoeia, 66 Ophir, Solomon's fleets at, 145 Orchoe, see Erech
;
;

Passover, institution

of, 95,

99

celebrated

by Hezekiah, 174
Pastoral
life,

origin of, 42

Pathrusim, 202
Patriarchs, longevity
of,

number,

12

genealogy, 40 Peat pits, remains

Peduil,

in,

33

Orontes, bank of inhabited by Khitas, 240 Ramses II. at, 254 Asshurnazirpal at,
;

378_

Osarsiph, revolt
Osiris,

of,

262
;

Egyptian god presides over last judgment, 313, 322; personification of his death, 320 a type of sun, 320, 322
; ; ; ;

king of Ammon, pays tribute to Sennacherib, 398 Pefaabast, king of Egypt, 276 Pekah, king of Israel, kills Pekahiah, 171 Syrian alliance and war with Judah, 172 deposed and reinstated, 172, 3S9 at
; ; ;

Damascus, 390

death, 173, 391

Israel,

Pekahiah, king of

succeeds Menaof power, 259

;

his name given to the the king, 315 dead person, 310 the dead Apis assimilated with, 326 Osortasen, name of kings in twelfth dynasty I. conquers Arabia and Nubia, III. tomb of, 331 214 Osrhoene, invaded by Shamash Bin, 382
;

hem

is

killed

by Pekah, 171
;

Pelasgi,

navy of, 243 invade Egypt, 260

rise

Pelusiac,

mouth

of the Nile, 194

;

Otaheite, metals

traditions
in,

of,

g,

18

want of

38

Othniel, judge, 117

Otiarte, antediluvian king of Larsam, 502

Pelusium, battle at defeat of Rot-Amen by Asshurbanipal, 280 Pennamu, king of Samala, in Armenia at Damascus, 390 Pentaour, Egyptian poet, 250, 315 his correspondence with Ameneman, 258
; ;

Oudyana,

21

Pentecost, 99 Penuel, destroyed

by Gideon,

121
;

Pepi-meri-ra, king of Egypt, 210 Negroes; roads, 211

Paari, battle at Pelasgi, 260
;

conquers

defeat of Lybians and

Persians, traditions
race,
;

of, 10,

4T

of Japhetic
;

Pachnan or Apachnas,
221

Shepherd king,
;

Padi, king of Migron or of Ekron prisoner by Hezekiah, 176, 399 of Judah given him, 400
Painting, Egyptian, 330 Babylonian, 506
; ;

made
cities

want of historical accuracy, 369 subdued by Asshurnazirpal, 378 revolt under Arbaces, 386 wars of Esarhaddon, 406 supremacy over Medes, Cyrus defeats Neriglissar, 488 487 defeats Nabonahid and takes Babylon,
62
;

Assyrian, 467

489 490
;

Darius puts down revolt in Xerxes plunders city, 491 Seleucia

Babylon,
;
;

built

Parthians, 491

Palaces, Egyptian, 334 Assyrian, Babylonian, 480 458, 461

;

418,

Peruvian traditions, 9, 17 Petitions to king and nobles of Assyria,

421 Petra, perhaps

Palmyra

or Tadmor, built by Solomon, 143 Pamir, plateau of, 21 Panindimri, Susianian god, 412 Papha, city taken by Sargon, 394 Paphos, king of, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 Papyrus, the Turin, 199 of Phtah-hotep, of Berlin, 220 Travels of the 209 Egi'ptian officer, 256 poem of Pentaour, of Ameneman, 258 250 caricature,
;
; ; ; ;

Kadesh Barnea, by Amaziah, 167

of,

J05

taken

Pharoah, name
Phatnitic,

81

deification of, 214

mouth of

the Nile, 194

268

variety

of,

308, 315, 316

of,

Paradise, Mosaic, situation

21

Phite, temples at, 336 Philistines, period of arrival in Palestine, invade Palestine from 113, 123, 124 defeated by EgypCrete, 123, 124, 265 are permitted to settle, 267 tians, 266 take possession of coast cities and attack Phoenicia, 124, 272 oppress Hebrews, allied with Ammonites, 125 defeat 119
; ;
;

INDEX.
at Aphek and capture Ark, 127 are defeated at Mizpeh, 128 defeat Saul at Gilboa, 135 defeated by David, pay tribute to Binlikhish III., 137 383; invaded by Tiglath-pileser II., invade JudaJi, 173 390 Phinehas, the priest, goes with the army against Midian, 109

529

Hebrews
:

Pontus, expeditions of Asshurnazirpal, 378; of Shalmaneser IV., 379

Potiphar, 88
Pottery, early Chaldan, 359
429. 459
;

Assyrian,

Prayer of Asshurbanipal, 418

hid, 488

of

Nabona;

Phoenicians of Aradus join revolt against Ramses II., 249; of Tyre assist in building Solomon's temple, 142 Tiglathpileser I. at Aradus, 375 invaded by Asshurnazirpal, 378 subject to Binlikhish III., 383; pay tribute to Sennacherib, 399 Esarhaddon's expedition, revolt against Asshurbanipal, 404, 406 circumnavigation of Africa, 285 408 invasion of Uahprahet, 286 subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar, 477 ; exportations to Assyria, 429 Phcenix, origin of belief in, 321
; ;

Priesthood in family of Aaron, 103 EgypAssyrian, 422 tian, 208, 290, 291
;

Primitive man, 41, 55 Prisoners among Hebrews, loi Assyrians, 423 92

;

Egyptians,

Prognathism, 54 Prometheus, legend

of,

11

Phonetic

characters, Egyptian, 304 Assyrian, 435 Phraortes, king of Media, invades Assyria defeat and death, 415

Prophets, schools of the, 128, 129 Provinces, government of by Egyptians, by Assyrians, 419 233 Psammetik I. made king of Athribis, 280 mercenary Dodecarchy, 282, 283, 409 troops, siege of Ashdod, 187, 284, 409 Psammetik 11., expedition to Ethiopia inscription, 286
;
;

P.sammetik III., 2S8

Pselchis, 235

Phtah,

Egyptian Memphis, 324

god

worship

of

at

Psiu-en-san,

Phtah-hotep, his book on good manners, 209 Phul, king of Assyria, 386, 388 takes Nineveh, 387,470; treaty with Menahem,
;

king of Solomon's wife, 273

in
;

Egypt,

father

of

Pul, see Phul

170, 38S

Punishments Egypt, 299 Pyramid, at

great,

law of Moses,

100

in

in Assyria, 424

Phut, son of

58 Physiognomy of various races, 51, 52, 53 Piankh, high priest of Amen, son of Herhor, 272

Ham,

331

Piankhi

I. imposes tribute on Egypt, 275 takes Thebes and Memphis, 276, 408 Piankhi II. marries sister of Shabaka driven out of Egypt, 283

330 Pythagoras, king of Citium, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407

;

Sakkarah, 204, 330, 358 205, 211, 330; of Dashur, 215, at Zaniet-el-arrian and Abousir, Assyrian in seven stages, 463

Pidilma, Susianian city, taken by Asshurbanipal, 412 Pinetsem, his embassy to Tiglath-pileser I.,
272, 375
Pise, use of in Assyrian buildings, 457
Pi.sidians,
II.,

Quails in the desert, 105

Quaternary period,
Turanian, 63

25, 38

skulls in caves,

R.
assist
;

Khitas

against

Ramses
;

249

Egyptian invasion, 254

wars

Pisiris,

of Sargon with, 394 king of Carchemi.sh pays tribute to Tiglath-pileser 11., 389; at Damascus, 390

built by Hebrews in Egypt, 92 Rabbath-Ammon, tributary to Thothmes taken by David, 139 III., 234

Raamses,

Pison, river, 21

Judah, taken by Shishak, 274 duties of, 418 Rabsaris, name, 178 Rabshakeh, name, 178 duties, 419 Race, definition of, 48

Rabbilh

in

Pithom, built by the Hebrews, 92 Plagues, of Egypt, 94, 261 in Assyria,

;

Rachel, wife of Bethlehem, 88

Jacob,

87

dies

near

383

Radesich
234, 250, 315

in.scriptlons of Seti

I. at,

244

Poems, Egyptian,

Rafts, Babylonian, 497

Polished stone period, 31

Polygamy

among

Hebrews,

138

in

Assyria, 425 Polygenistic theory, 48, 53 PoliTihony, of cuneiform characters, 443

Ragiba, Susianian god, 412 Ramah, Samuel's residence at. 128, 135 taken and disfortified by Baasha mantled by Asa, 154
;

Ramesseum,

see

Thebes

M M

53
Ramoth,
164
in Gilead, battle

INDEX.
with
Syrians,

Reuben, son of Jacob, 87

tribe, 109
;

territory

of

tleath of

Ahab, i6o

taiceii

by Jchoram,
;

Ramses Ramses

I.,

king of Egypt, 240

the
;

campaign
not

against Khilas, 241

II.,

Nebuchadnezzar Riblah, Necho at, 185 and the Jewish prisoners at, 190 Rim-Sin, king of Chalda;a, 355
Riphath. son of Comer, 61 Ritho, Egyptian goddess, 324 Rivers, level of in Quaternary period, 27
of Eden, 21
;

king

who "knew
;

Joseph," 92
;

his papyrus, 199 ; surnamed Meriamen, 245 ; Sesostris legends of, supposed monument at facts, 247 246 Ninfi, 247 n. revolt, 248 first campaign, poem on exploits, 230 ; alternate 249
; ; ;
;

level of Nile, 218

Road,

military,

from Egypt to Assyria, 264

war and peace, 254, 255 Ramses III., docs not mention Hebrews, wars and buildings, 264 war with 115
;
;

Babylonian, 496 Robes of king of Assyria, 428 Romans, of Japhetic race, 62

Lybians and Philistines, 265 victories, 266 inscriptions conspiracy, 267 date, 269 tomb, 334
; ; ; ; ;

Ramses IV., 270 Ramses V., tomb at Bibanel Moluk, 334 Ramses XII., adventures of Ark of Chons,
271

Raphia, defeat of Egyptians, 175, 278, 475 Ras, temple at, 4S5 Ra-sebek-nefru, queen of Egypt, 214 Rashi, capital of Rash in Susiana taken by Asshurbanipal, 412 Rebecca, wife of Isaac, 86

Romis, king of Tamassus, tributary to Esarhaddon, 407 Roofs of Assyrian buildings, 459 Rosetta branch of Nile, 194 Rosetta stone, 303 Rot Amen succeeds Tahraka wars with evacuates Egypt, Assyrians, 2S0, 408
;

281

death, 282
;

Rotennu, confederation of, 227 conquered by Thothmes I., 228, 360 refuse tribute
;
;

to Thothmes III. ; defeated by Egypdefeated by Seti I., tians, 231, 232, 233 243 ; submit to Ramses II., 255

Red man, physiognomy of,

origin, 64

53

habitat, 54;

Rupiktu made king of Ashdod, 390

S.

Red

physical Sea, passage of Hebrews fleets on, 244, 267 ; canal changes, 93 from Nile to, 245, 285
;

Refrof, great serpent in Egyptian Hades, 322 Refuge, cities of, 100

Sabbatical year, loi literature, 308 Saf, goddess, patroness of Sagadatti, king of Mount Mildish, taken prisoner by Sargon, 394 Sagartia, rebellion against Sargon, 393
Sai, inscriptions at isle of, 235 Sailors, or Pilots, class of in Egypt, 293

Rehob,

in Judah, taken by Shishak, 274 Rehoboam, son of Solomon, succeeds to

the throne, 147 revolt of the ten tribes, invasion of Shishak, 152, 274 148 death, 152
; ;

Sais,

Reindeer age, 30
; ;

of HeReligion of primitive men, 29 belief in brews, 98 : of Egypt, 317 unity of God, 318, 323 symbolism of, 319 future rewards and punishments, worship of animals, Triads, 324 322 revolu325 solar character, 319, 452 tion of Amenhotep IV., 238, 337 ; of astral polytheism, 425, 452 Assyria character, 452 ; of Babylon resemble. Triads, 498 ; uf that of Assyria, 497 Turanians, 343, 344
;
; ;

receives Assyrian name, temple of Ahmes, 288 Bilmati, 278 Salatis (Set-aa-pehti-nubti), or Saites, Shtpherd king, 356 Sakhulina, king of Hamath, defeated by bhalmaneser IV., 379, 380 pjTamid, 204 Sakkarah, tablet of, 201
276, 277
;

Dur

Remenen,

see

Armenians

tombs, 204, 205, 207 Salem, Melchizedek king of, 82 taken by Egyptians, 254 besieged Samaria, founded by Omri, 156 Binby Benhidri, 158, 163; subject to Shallikhish III., 383; besieged by maneser VI. taken by Sargon, 175, 39', 302 foreign colonies in, 393
;
; ; ;

Rephidim, 97 Resen, 348, 349

Resin, the Syrian, revolts from Solomon, 146 Resin, king of Syria, in alliance with Pekah; killed by Tiglath-pileser II.,
172, 389

Samdan,

see

Adar
II.
;

Samdan-malik, son of Tiglath-pileser

supplanted by Sargon, 392

Sammuramat,
383, 470

wife of Einlikhish III., 368,

Resurrection of the body, Egyptian belief in, 311, 321, 322

Samson, 125 Samuel, birth and character, 126 judge, Mizpeh, 128 127 defeats Philistines at
; ;

schools

of

prophets,

128

dissuades

INDEX.
from asking a king, 130 disagreement with anoints Saul, 131 anoints Saul, 132, 133 kills Agag, 133 David, 134 dies at Ramah, 135 Sanib, king of Amnion, at Damascus, 390
;

531
;

Hebrews

(Larsam), 353, 354 table of squares found at, 360 worship of Shamash, 499 Sennacherib, king of Assyria, succeeds Sargon, 176, 398 conquers Babylonians,

Senkereh

Sar, Chalda;an

and Assyrian measure,

360,

449 Sarah, wife of Abraham, 84, 85 Sarah, Hebrew woman petition to As;

syrian

officer,

421

Sarcophagus, peculiarities under Shepherd kings, 222 Sardinia, conquest of by Pelasgi, 259 invade Egypt, 260 Saidanapalus, see Asshurlikhish Sarepta, Egyptian officer at, 256 submits to Sennacherib, 398 Sargon usurps throne, 392 eclipse of
;
; ;

Armenians, and Medians campaign in Syria, 398, 471 attacks Hezekiah, 177, campaign in 178, 179, 39S, 399, 400 in Media and Susiana, Chalda;a, 400 inin Cha!da;a and Elam, 402 401 rebuilds Nineveh scriptions, 372, 398 rebellion in Babylon, palace, 401, 403 victory over Greeks in Cllicia 401, 403
:

is

assassinated, 404
of,

Sepa, statue

204

Scplul, king of Khitas,

makes

treaty with

Ramses

I.,

241
;

Septuagint version of Isaiah, 22 nology of, 39, 46

chro-

defeat of Elamites, 392 takes defeats Egyptians at Raphia, 175, 277, 392 removes Israelites, wars in Armenia and with i75> 392 in Commageue and Philistines, 394 Babylonia, 395, 470 submission of Cyprus siege of Tyre, 396 building of Dur Sharyukin is assassinated, 397 ; his invocation of the gods, 456
;

moon

Serapeum, 326
Serica,

Samaria

Mount Merou

in,

20
;

Serpent, form of tempter, 10 brazen destroyed by Hezekiah, 174 Seruya-edirat, sister of Asshurbanipal, 410
Sesocris, king of

Egypt, 204
II.),

Sesostris

(Ramses

origin

of

name,

Saruc, see Assaracus

Saul, anointed king of Israel, 131 delivers Jabesh Gilead, 131 victory over Philis;
;

246
Set, see

Sutekh
of,

Seth, pillars
Seti
I.,

15

and Amalekites, 133 final rupture with Samuel animosity to David, 134 slaughter of priests, 135 defeat and death on Mount Gilboa, 135, 136; comparison of government of Saul and David, 141 Scales, unknown to aborigines of America,
tines
; ;
;

king of

Egj'pt,
;

241

sumamed
;

wars with Khitas, Merenphtah, 242 Rotennu, and Armenians, 243 repulses artesian Lydians fleet on Red Sea
;

well, 244

canal, 245

tomb, 334
;

Seti II. carried

16

262 death, 264

;

by his father to Ethiopia, long reign, 263 invades Egypt

;

Scandinavians, of Japhetic race, 62

Scarabaeus, used as passport in Hades, 310 Science and the Bible, 47 Egj'ptian, 317 C'halda;an, 360 Assyrian, 448 Sculpture, EgjTJtian, 208, 213, 222, 223, Chaldaean, 359 Assyrian, 465 328, 465 Greek, 465 Scythians, war with Shalmaneser IV., 381 invade Media, 416, 472 Palestine, 184 Sebennytic mouth of Nile, 194
; ;
; ; ;

Sevek-hotep, name of kings of thirteenth dynasty, 217

Shabaka, see Shebek

Shafra, king of Egypt, 205 statues thrown down, 207 Shagaraktiyash, king of Chaldsea, 354
;

his inscription, 446

Shallum, king of Israel, murdersZachariah is killed by Menahem, 170 Shalmaneser I., king of Assyria, 372, 404

Segor, see Zoar

Seir,

mount, 87

n.

Seker-nefer-ke, king of
eclipse, 204

Egypt

record of

Seleucia, foundation of, 491

Scmempses, king of Egypt, 203 Semiramis, legend of, 364. See Sammuramat
Semitic people, migrations guages, 70, 342
of,

Shalmaneser II., king of Assyria, 376 Shalmaneser III., king of Assyria, 376 Shalmaneser IV., king of Assyria, 379 palace at Calah black obelisk, 166, 379 Ahab and Benhidri, 159, 380; war m Babylonia, 469 in Media, 3S0 defeats Hazael Jehu, 166, 381 war in Armenia and with Scythians revolt of Asshur: ;
;

daninpal, 381

death, 382

343

lan-

Semneh,

temples, 214, 235

fortress of, 214 cataracts, 218 inscriptions, 237 ;

;

Shalmaneser V., expedition to Damascus and Armenia, 385 Shalmaneser VI. succeeds Tiglath-pileser
Ho.shea revolts from, 174, 391 II. death, 392 siege of Samaria, 175, 391
;
;

Scnegambia, people

of,

51

; ;

Jj;

TNOKX.
Sidilim, battle in Vale of, 82 Sidka, king of Ascalon, taken prisoner Sennacherib, 399

Shamasli, Assyrian sun-god, 454 temples, 484, 485, 499 Shaniash-bin, king of Assyria, succeeds Shalmaneser IV. wars in Osrhoene, Armenia, and Bahylonia, 382, 470 Shamash-ibni excites rebellion in Babylon, 405 Shamgar, judge, 119 Shamshi-bin, king of Assyria, 376
;

by

Shamshi-bin, king of Chalda;a, 356 Shamsie, queen of Aiabs, at Damascus, 390 tribute, 393 Shamulshamugin, son of Esarbaddon, made king of Babylon, 407 rebellion, 409 submission, 410; dethroned, 415, 471
; ;

Sidon remains faithful to Ramses II., 249; Egyptian officer at, 256 taken by Philistines, 124, 272 pays tribute to Asshurnazirpal, 378 to Shalmaneser IV., 381 to Binlikhish III., 383 to Sennacheiib, 398 taken by Esarhaddon, 404 revolts from Clialda;ans, 188
;
; ;

Signet, sec Cylinder

Sihon, king of the Amorites remains of his capital defeated by Hebrew.s, 108
; ;

Silsilis,

mimuments of Amen-hotep

III.,

Sliap-en-ap, daughter of Piankhi II.

wife

of Har-em-hebi, 239 Siluna, subject to Shamash-bin, 382

237

of Psammetik, 283
Sharulien, taken

by Ahmes, 226

Simeon, son of Jacob, 87, 88 territory of tribe, 113; migration of, 149
;

Sharyukin, king of Agani, 347 Sharyukin, king of Assyria, see Sargon Shasu, Arab tribes, 227 subdued by Amen-hotep I., 228 by Seti I., 242 Sheba, revolt of, 140 Sheba, queen of, visits Solomon, 143 Shebek (So), Hoshea's alliance with, 174, defeated by Assyrians at 277> ,391 Raphia, 175, 277, 393 dethrones Bokenrauf, 277 name, 277 n. character, 281 title, "Sultan," 393 Shebetun, Ramses II. encamped at, 250 Shechem, city taken by sons of Jacob, 88 Abimelech king of, 121 deputies of
; ;
;

Simyra rebels against Sargon, 393 Sin (moon god), 354, 454, 483, 484, 485,
499
Sinai,

Hebrews at, 96 law given, 98 apostasy of people, 98 Egyptian inscriptions, 205 copper mines and work;

shops, 105, 205, 211

Sin-baladan, king of Chaldaja, 355

Singar, tributary to
to Seti I., 243
;

Thothmes

III.,

234

to

Shalmaneser IV., 380

Sin-inun, king of Chaldsea, 355 Sin-said, king of Chaldsea, 354

Sinukta, in Asia Sargon, 393

;

Minor, subjugated

by

tribes meet Rehoboam there, 148 fied by Jeroboam, 150

forti-

Sippara, 353, 354 taken by Tiglath-pileser I., 375 temples, 485, 499
;

Shem, race
of,

of, 59 physical characteristics languages, 70 Shemaiah, the prophet, 152 Shepherd kings of Egypt, 89, 219, 220, 221 expulsion of, 224 some remain, 224 Seti I. descended from, 242 are afraid of Chaldaean power, 221, 236
;

Sitraphernes, the Persian, taken prisoner

60

by Esarhaddon, 406 Slaves among Hebrews, loi Egyptian expeditions for, 237, 257 among Assyrians, 424 Slavonians, of Japhetic race, 62 Snefru, king of Egj'pt, 205
;
;

Shepherd class, in Egypt, 292, 293 Sheshonk, see Shishak

Shilagara, Susianian god, 412 Shiloh, Tabernacle and Ark neglect of, 116
there,

So, see

Soldiers,

Shebek Hebrew, 158

:

292

Assyrian, 429

n. Egyptian, 291, Babylonian, 492

; ;

114

Sodom, Lot resides

84 Soleb, temple
of,

there, 82

destruction

Shimgam, Susianian god, 412 Shishak, son of Uaserken, invades Judsea, 274 takes Jerusalem, 152
;

Soli,

king
;

of,

at, 237 tributary to Esarhaddon, 407

;

Solomon, birth
141
:

Shudami, Susianian god, 412 Shumir, people of Chaldsea, 342, 344

Shumud, Susianian god, 412 Shunem, taken by Shishak, 274

Shutruknakhunta, king of Susiana, 387,
470

of, 140 succeeds David, administration alliance with Egypt and Tyre temple, 142 Egyptian wife, commerce with India, 144 to 143, 273 Ophir lapse to idolatry, 145 revolts death, 146 writings, 146 against, 146 collected and arranged by Hezekiah, 180
;

Solomon, king of Moab, at Damascus, 390

Solon, 213
Soss, Chalda;an 360, 449
;

kingof Gebal, tributary to Tigath-pileser II., 389 at Damascus, 390 Sichem, Abram's vision there, 81 Sicily, conquest by Pelasgi, 259
Sibit-baal,

and Assyrian measure,

n.

Sothic period, 268

INDEX.
Soudan, Fellatah in, 51 revolt pressed by Ramses III., 267
;

533
defeated by Jehoash, 167 subdued by Asshurnazirpal, 378 tribute to Shalmaneser IV., 379; to Binhkhish

in

sup-

Samaria, 163

Soul, belief in the immortality

Species, definition of, 48

of,

321

revolt,
;

Sphinx, 206, 331 form of under Shepherds, 223 Spies sent into Canaan, 105 Squares, Chaldaean tables of, 360 Suitues, Egyptian, 208, 328, 336 ; Assyrian, 467 Babylonian, 505 Steel used by the Assyrians, 427 Stick usually carried by Babylonians, 492
;
;

III., 3S3; Tiglath-pileser II., 172. 3S9 Sennacherib's campaign, 389; campaigns of Esarhaddon, 405 398 invasion of Psammetik, 284 of NebuSee Israel, Judah, chadnezzar, 476.
; ; ;

Phcenicia

Taanach, in Judah, taken by Shishak, 274 Taauth, female form of god Ao, 454, 499.
;

Stone implements, 27
still in

in

Chalda;a, 359

501

use, 36
;

Stone age, all races passed through, 35 no date for, 37 Strangers, treatment of by Hebrews, 102
Succoth, destroyed by Gideon, 121

Tabeal, son of, see Ashariah Tabernacle, 99, 103, 239 at Shiloh, 114 Tabernacles, feast of, 99 Table of shew-bread, 103, 104, 239
;

Succoth-benoth, 499 Sufeira, see Sippara Suffetes, or Judges of Hebrews, 117

Table of stone, 98 Tablet of Tuthmosis, 200: of Abydos, 200 second, 200 of Sakkarah, 201 Tadmor, or Palmyra, built by Solomon,
;

Sulumal, king of Melitene, at Damascus,

390

143

Sumere,

city of Shumir, 342

of,

Sun, table

314

Egyptian

religion,

da:an temple of, of, 454 Surgadia, city in Parthia, taken by Sargon,
J

phases of personified in Chal319, 321, 322 354 Assyrian worship

;

Tafnekht, king of Eg^T'. 27^' Tahennu invade Egj^pt, 259 Tahpanhes, Jewish refugees there, 191

Tahraka is sent against Sennacherib, 179, becomes king of Egypt wars m 278 attacked and defeated by Lybia, 278 attacked by Esarhaddon, 278, 407
;

394 Susa, taken

Asshurbanipal

by Asshurbanipal, 410

hiero-

gl>-phics at, 434

Susiana, or Elam, population of, 59, 343 dominant in Chalda;a, 352, 355 conquest subject to Binof Palestine, 82, 352 form independent state likhish III., 382 subafter destruction of Nineveh, 387 jugated by Sargon, 392 by Sennacherib, Susa taken, 410, 411 de400, 402, 409 vastation of the country, 412 submission,
; ; ; ; ; ;

279, 408 defeats Tahraka, 280 Taia, queen, mother of

;

Ethiopia, retieats to Nccho insurrection in Delta

; :

Amenhotep
;

IV.,

238

Takkaro, allied with Lybians Syria with Philistines, 265

Talmis, 235 Talmud, of Jerusalem, 4 Taraahu invade Egypt, 259

iuv.ade

413 cuneiform writing, 433 Sutekh, or Set, supreme god of the Shepherds, 221 worship of by Ramses 11., same as Baal and 242 name of, 307 Typhon, 320 temple at Tanis, 336 Suzub made king of Babylon defeated by Sennacherib; escapes and returns to Babylon, 402 defeated escapes to SuBabylon plunagain defeated siana
; ;
; ; ; ; ;

Tamaritu, Susianlan general, 410; king,

411

Tamassus, king of, tributary to Esarhaddon,

407

Tanis or Avaris, 221

inscription at, 241 buildings of Ramses II., 245: rival dynasty to Her H or, 273; twenty-second dynasty, 275 receives Assyrian name of Dur Banit, 279 temple at, 336
;

dered, 403, 471

Syene, inscriptions
Syllabarium, Median, 436 Syrians, position

237 Assyrian, Babylonian, and

at,
of,

Thothmes

227; conquered by again independent, 240; revolt against Ramses II., 24; atinvasion of Philistines wars, 254 conquered by tack of Khitas, 265 David, 139; invasion of Tiglath-pilescr 154; defeated, I., 375; invade Israel, siege of battle at Ramoth, 161
III., 230
;
; ;

Tarhula, king of Gamgum, in Armenia at Dama.scus, 390 Tarshish, son of Javan,6i Tarshish, Phosnician voyages to, 145 Tarsus, foundation of, 404, 408
:

158

Tartan, name, 178 duties, 419 Taxes in Egypt, 296 monuTel-el-Amarna, building of, 23S ments at, 239 destruction of, 240 Tel-Ibrahim, temple at 485
; ;

; :

534
Temple of Solomon, 142
16S
;

INDEX.
dedication, 143; by Jehoasli, restored hyjolham, 171 treasures
;
;

plundered by Shishak, 152

Tibni, pretender to throne of Israel, 156 Tidal, sl'c Thargal

removed by He/ekiah, 177

:

profaned by
; ;

Tiglathpileser
;

I.,

emba.ssy to from Pinet;

Maiiasseh, 181 restored l)y Josiah, 183 plundered by Nebuchadnezzar, 187, 490 destroyed, 190 Temple, Egj'ptian, by Pyramids, 206, 318 at Semnch, 214, 235 of Shepherd kings at Amana, 236 at Napata and Soleb, 237 at Abydos, 242, 245 inscriptions of Ramses II., 257 at Ipsambul, 245, 250, 286 at Thebes, 245, 250 Greek, in Kgypt, 2S7 worship in, 327 importance in art, 328 to Osortasen III., 331 334 Temple, Assyrian, 464, 465
; ; ;
; ;

.sem with crocodile, 272, 375 inscription, wars with Babylon, 375, 404, 356, 374 469 hunting wild beasts, 431
;

Tiglathpileser
;

II., heads in.surrection in Assyria made king, 388 reduces Babylonia, 470 invades .Syria, 389 revolt, 389 again invades Syria court at Damascus, 172, 173, 390; takes captive Israelites east of Jordan, 173, 390 invades Scythia and Syria, 391
; ;

Tigris,

course of 339 inundation, destroys wall of Nineveh, 386

;

340

Temple, Babylonian, 4S0,

;

482, 484

Terah, 80 descendants in Chaldaea, 345 Teta, king of Egypt, 203, 210 Tetrapolis, Chalda;an, 348

Tigro-Euphrates basin, 339 Time, Assyrian divisions of, 449 Tirhakah, see Tahraka
Tirza,

murder of Elah

at,

155; taken by

Omri, T56
Tithes, institution

Teumraan, king of Susiana, joins revolt of Shamulshamugin, 409 defeated, 410

;

put

to

death, 411

Titan, son of Xisuthrus, 504 of, loi

Titus, arch of, 103

Tezpi, American Noah, 17

Thamna, taken by Sennacherib, 399 Thargal, name of, 82, 352

Thebes, foundation of, 213 twelfth dynasty, 214; thirteenth dynasty, 217;
;

Togarmah, son of Gomer, 61 Tola, judge of Hebrew.s, 121 Tombs, Egyptians, 201, 204,
333

207, 216, 242,

buildings of Thothmes III., 236 bodies of Assyrian chiefs hung there, 236 palace of Seti L, 242; of Ramses II., Merenphtah there, 260 taken 245, ^54 by Seti II., 263 inscriptions, 266, 267, 268, 271, 278 king IVlonth-mei-Ankhi, Rot-Amen 278 city pillaged by
;

Tombs, Chaldaean, 359

Tongues, confusion of, 7, 8, 23, 504 Tower, see Babel Tower, of Ramses, 266 Trade of Neolithic epoch, 31 Tran.sformations of dead in Hades, 311 Tree of life, 11
Triads, Egyptian, 323 Assyrian, 368, 453, 454 Babylonian, 498
;

Asshurbanipal obelisks taken to Nineveh, 2S0 Ethiopians, 2S2 Psammetik, tombs, 333 283 temples and palaces,
;

334. 335

Thermuthis, daughter of Pharaoh, saves Moses, 93

Troy,

people
II.,

Ramses

of assist 249

Khitas

against

Thoth buries inscribed

;

tablets,

15

god

Tsahi, subdued by

Thothmes

III., 233

of science, 307 conductor of the soul in Hades, 310; the first Hermes, 315; type of priests, 315 registers last judgment, 322
;

Tses-hortsa, king of Egypt, 204

Thoth-hotep, tomb

Thothmes
361

of, 204 king of Egj'pt, wars with Rotennu, 228 crosses Euphrates, 229,
I.,
:

Tubal, son of Japhet, 61 Tubalcain first worker in metal, 4 Tuham, king of Istunda, at Damascus,
390

Tuklat-samdan

Hall of Ancestor.s, 200 under guardianship of Hatasu, 229 annals of Karnak, 230 battle at Megiddo, 231 march to Euphrates, 232, tribute to, 233 361 Thothmes IV., short reign, 236 Throne, Assyrian, in British Museum, 427 Tiaaken, king of Egypt, 221, 223 Tibareni submit to Esarhaddon, 405
III., his
; ;

Thothmes Thothmes

II., short reign,

229

I., king of Assyria, 372 takes Babylon, 373, 469 signet taken by Babylonians, 373
;

Tuklat-samdan
Tunar-i, tomb

II.,

of,

377 201

Tunep, taken by Thothmes III., 233 Turanian race, 63 language, 64, 68, 344
;

in Chaldaea, 342

writing, 345
n.

Turin papyrus, 199 Turquoise mines at Sinai, 205 Tyh, desert of El, 106
Tylos, 497
isle

of; Babylonian

commerce

with,

INDEX.
Tyre,
inscription
officer

535
;

of
at,
;

Ramses
256
;

II.,

249;

tribute to Asshurnazirpal, 378 to Shalmancser IV., to 'I'iglathto Binlikhish 111., 383 381

Kgvptian
;

Sargon's Van, pillaged by Assyrians, 381 wars of E.sarhaddon, campaign, 393

;

405 Vedas, traditions

in, 11,

36

repulse of Sargon, 396 pileser II., 389 revolts taken by Asshurbanipal, 408 from Chalda;ans, 188 taken by Nebuchadnezzar, 477
:

W.
Wady-halfa, cataracts, 211 Osortasen 1., 214
;

inscriptions of

Tyrrhenians invade Egj'pt, 260

U.
Uahprahet, kingof Egi'pt(Hophra, Apries), excites Zedekiah to revolt, 188 retreats,
;

Wady Mogharah, factories Wady Mokattib, 97

Warfare,

at,

103

Hebrew mode
life,

of,

158

n.

Warriors, class of in Egypt, 290

189, 286,
;

477

attacks C^fpnis

takes

dethroned by Ahmes, 2S6 Sidon Uaserken, general, father of Sheshonk, 274 Uaserken, king of Egypt, 276
Ugro-finnish, race
;

Water of

11

Wa-Wa,

physiognomy of,
;

52,

62

Ullushun, made king of Van, 393 defeated by Sargon, 394 Ummanaldash, Susianian general, made submits, 413 rebels, 411 king, 410 Ummanibi, Susianian general, 410 king, 411 Ummanmimanu, king of Elam, 402 defeated by Sennacherib, 403 Undashi, Susianian city, taken by Asshurbanipal, 413 Unity of the human race, 48, 50
; ; ; ;

by Pepi people, conquered Merira, 211 Weaving and spinning, origin of, 4 in lake villages, 35 Week, introduced by Assyrians, 449 Well, artesian, constructed by SeU I., 244
;

White

race, original habitat, 51, 54 ations of in Europe and Africa, 51

alter-

Women,
of,

treatment of by Hebrews, 105 Words, primitive choice of, 65 formation

;

69
period, 31
;

Workshops of Neolithic
Writing, Eg>'ptian, 302 431

cuneiform, 345,

Upri, king 407

of,

tributary to Esarhaddon,

Ur

great pyramid (Calneh), 80, 348, 353 early supremacy over 354, 358 Babylon, 355 inscriptions, 356 temple, 485. 499 Ur-Hammu (Orchamus), 353
:

at,

Xerxes, plunders Babylon, 491 buries Xisuthrus, e.scapes deluge, 14, 503 king, 502 tablets at Sippara, 354
: ;

Uriah the Hittite, 139 Urijah the prophet, 186 Urikki, king of Kui, tribute

to Tiglath-

pile.ser II., 389; at Damascus, 390 Urim, king of Hubisna, at Damascus, 390 Urumiyeh, lake, expedition of Tiglath-

Yakindu, king of Aradus, kills himself, 40S Yala, king of Hedjaz, 406

Vaman, usurps throne of Ashdod

Nulukhi, 394

flies

to

pileser

I. to,

375
;

Vanbo,

city

in

Arabia taken by As.shurto Sar-

Urzaha, excites revolt in Van, 393 mits suicide, 394

com-

banipal, 414

Yataamir the Saba;an pays tribute

gon, 393 Yathrib (Medina), 406 banipal
;

U.serkera, king of Egypt, 210 Uskhiiti, king of Tuna, at Damascus, 390

taken by Asshur-

Utensils of Tabernacle, 103, 239 Uxians, in Chaldsea, 343

Uzziah, king of Judah, succeeds Amaziah takes Gath and Ashdod fortifies Klath
;

subdues Ammonites, 168

death, 171

leprosy and

Yaubid, of Hamath, rebels .against Sargon, 393 Year, Egyptian, 231 n., 268 n. Assyrian, 45 origin, 63 Yellow race, habitat of, 54 languages, 67
;

Yemen, campaign of Nebuchadnezzar

Valpitlam, temple, 485 Valsaggatu, temple, 480. 481, 482
Valzida, temple, 482, 484

in,

478 Ywaitc, king of Arabs, joins revolt of Nabubelshum, 409 defeated, 410; insubmits, 414 v.aded, 413
; ;

536

INDEX.
Zedekiah (Mattanaiah), king of Judah, succeeds Jchoiachin, 187 at Babylon revolt, 188, 286 besieged, taken and
.

Zabdan, brother or king of Babylon, 378 Zachanah, king of Israel, succeeds Jero-

boam

11.,

170

Zal (Heroopolis), attacked by Shasu, 242, 243. 245 Zarpanit, see Ishtar

put to death, 190, 477 Zerah, see Azerch-Amen Zervan, son of Xisuthrus, 504 Zikar Sin, king of Chaldsa, 355
Zikarta, see Sagartia

Zared, brook, Hebrews

Zaretan, city, 112

at,

107

Zimri, death

of,

log

Zebpim, 82 Zebulon, son of Jacob, 87

tribe of, 113

Zoar, 82
;

territory of the

officer at, 256 Zobah, Syrians of defeated by David, 139 Zodiac, Assyrian, 448
;

Egyptian

Zechariah, the prophet, 168

Zoroastrian, religion, 10, 343, 351

END OF INDEX.

LIST OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS QUOTED.

PAGE

Gen.

iv.

23, 24

Deut.

ii.

25
14,
I

PAGE 6
15

vi.

4
8

45
5
6,
7.

V.
vii.

lOI

vii.
viii.

24 I 4 10
II,
8, 9,

269 269
7

3>
xiii.

XV. 12
xvi. 12
xvii.

18
..

113 145 100

lOI lOI

X.
xi.
xii.

10

13
10
.

348 8 80
81 81

25
17

100 138
100, loi

xxi.
xxiii.

1821
20
7,

xiii.

10,

14

xiv.

82 82
105

xxiv.
xxviii.

10

16
13, 17, 18,

102 100 22
loi

7
XV. XX.
xxi.
xxii.
I
I

5053
10
16 3
10, 12

163
113 112

83 84
113 85 113 87 6 291

Jos.

iii.

32

xxvi.
xxviii.
xli.

10
56, 57

ix. x.
xii.
xiii.

21
5

274 274 274

113 274
135 399 231 231 274 226 274 249

xlvii.

22
2

18
XV. 56

Ex.

i.

246
91 91 102 113
xvi.
xvii.

iii.

V.
xii.
xiii.

18 14

59 8 9
II

44

17 xviii. 21

27
26

xix.

6
10, 18,

xxi. 16, 24,

99 100
loi
x.xi.

19,28

20
xxii.

43 38
I

274
115 122 140 116 271 109

25

XXX. 12 xxxiv. 16

102 140 145

Jiul.

ii.

xi.

31

Lev. XX.
xxiv.

20
1

100 100

xii.

6
25

xxi.

xxvi.

7,817,40
44,

loi

3537.
Num.xvi. 40
xviii.

46

102 132
loi

iSam.iv.v. vi iv. 4
viii.

7
II

21
6,

17

99
131

xxxi.

XXXV. 10

24,30

14

109 100

xii. 12 XXX. 14

99
124

538
Kings
30
2

LIST OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS QUOTED.

PAGE PAGE
Is.

iv.

146, 313

XX.
xlii.

394
144 169

-^27
>^i-

xii.

145 14s 148

151

xxxiii. 21
I

xlvii.
liv.

xiv. 12
xvi.
2,

487
169 170
186 189 185 124

II

155

Ix.

13

XX.
xxi.
xxii.

34 30
I

380 160 380

162 163 169

Jer. xxvi. 21

xxxiv. 17
xlvii.
I

2 Kings

i.

viii.

ID

Ezek. XXV. 16
xxvi.

xiv.

28 37

79
4
2

477

XV. 19
xvi.
xvii.
7,

9
16, 17

388 I72 389

174
455, 499

Dan.

i.

ii.

7,

iv.

30
7

29, 31
XIX.
xxiii.

V.

35
5

II
22 24

179

18

494 494 486 494 489

xxiv.

XXV. 27
1

498 475 4S7

92 149 92 152
143 148

Apocryphal Bel

& Dragon 3&23

483

Chron. iv. 2 1
vii. xii.

Banich

i.

31,42
21,

vi.

Hos.

iv.
vii.

4
I

11

489 500
171 171 171

2 Chron.

ii.

X.
xi.

14

viii.

4
2
i

X.

170

9 xxiv. 22 XXV. 4 xxviii. 20

Ps. cxxxvii

274
167 167

Nahum

i.

ii.

13
18, 19

390
481

iii.

7,

416 416 416

472
124

Hab.
Zeph.

i.

6,

Prov. XXV.
Is. vii.

180

ii.

X.

I 6 9 28 seq

172,

xi;
xiii.

15 17

22
13

xix.

2, 4,

389 22 399 95 491 275

Matt. xix. 8

99 99
313

Mark.
Acts

x.

4
27

vii.

REFERENCES TO HERODOTUS.
The Quotations from and
and important,
that
it

References to

Herodotus
will

are so

numerous

has been considered advisable to add a List of

Passages, quoted anil the pages

[All

where these

be found.

quotations are from

the

translation

of the

Rev. Professor

Rawlinson.

2nd Ed.].

Book

I.

Chap.
,,

,,

,.

268 478 i79--358> 478 180 478 181... 47S, 483 182 483 184 383 185 473 186 473 192... 496, 497 194. 496 195492 196. 492 197. 447 198. 492 200. 493
32 178
201. 215216.

Book

II.

Chap. 104.
106. 135136. 137139141. 151158. 159164.
165. 166. 168.

PAGE 235 247 301

21
:>'

300
281 179

277, 281

283 285
185

289
291 291 292 286 288 299 2S7 28 7
185

172. 173177178. 182.

Bool.
III.

35

28 /)

35 35

Book

II.

Chap.

4
5

37...

7778. 80.

268 194 291, 317 302

302 301

Chap.

5-

17.
18.,

94-

314 314 249

34 496

Book V. Chap.

16.

81. 84.

99103.

302 302 203 23s

52-

Book VII. Chap.

78

249

WEUTHEIMEK, LEA AND

CO., PKI.NTERS,

FINSBURV ClKtUS.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

LIBRARY

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