Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

BUDDHISM.

The Brahminical system has not ceased to maintain its supremacy in India since the time when it was presented to view in the law-codes. But it has not escaped alteration and attack. New movements, religious and political, have appeared to modify its character. Of these, Buddhism is by far the most memorable.

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA.—Of the life of Buddha we have only legendary information, where it is impossible to separate fact from romance. The date of his death was between 482 and 472 B.C. He was then old. He belonged to the family of Gautamas, who were said to be of the royal line of the Çâkyas, a clan having its seat about a hundred and thirty-seven miles north of Benares. The story is, that, brought up in luxury, and destined to reign, he was so struck with the miseries of mankind, that, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his parents, his young wife, and an only son, and retired to a solitary life to meditate upon the cause of human suffering. From Brahminical teachers he could obtain no solution of the problem. But after seven years of meditation and struggle, during which sore temptations to return to a life of sense and of ease were successfully resisted, he attained to truth and to peace. For forty-four years after this he is said to have promulgated his doctrine, gathering about him disciples, whom he charged with the duty of spreading it abroad.

THE BUDDHISTIC DOCTRINE.—Buddhism was not a distinct revolt against the reigning system of religion. Buddha left theology to the Brahmans. Indra, Agni, and the other divinities, and the services rendered to them, he left untouched. Being an anchorite, he was not required to concern himself with the rites and observances in which others took part. His aim was practical. His doctrine, though resting on a theoretical basis, was propounded simply as a way of salvation from the burdens that oppressed the souls of men. Nor did he undertake a warfare against caste. The blessing of deliverance from the woes of life he opened to all without distinction. This was the limit of his opposition to caste.

THE ROAD TO NIRVANA.—Buddha taught, (1) that existence is always attended with misery; (2) that all modes of misery result from passion, or desire unsatisfied; (3) that desire must be quenched; (4) that there are four steps in doing this, and thus of arriving at NIRVANA, which is the state in which self is lost and absorbed, and vanishes from being. These four ways are (1) the awakening to a perception of the nature and cause of evil, as thus defined; (2) the consequent quenching of impure and revengeful feelings; (3) the stifling of all other evil desires, also riddance from ignorance, doubt, heresy, unkindliness, and vexation; (4) the entrance into Nirvana, sooner or later, after death. The great boon which Buddha held out was escape from the horrors of transmigration. He attributed to the soul no substantial existence. It is the Karma, or another being, the successor of one who dies, the result and effect of all that he was, who re-appears in case of transmigration. Buddhism involved atheism, and the denial of personal immortality, or, where this last tenet was not explicitly denied, uncertainty and indifference respecting it. On the foundation of Buddha's teaching, there grew up a vast system of monasticism, with ascetic usages not less burdensome than the yoke of caste. The attractive feature of Buddhism was its moral precepts. These were chiefly an inculcation of chastity, patience, and compassion; the unresisting endurance of all ills; sympathy and efficient help for all men.

DEIFICATION OF BUDDHA.—By the pupils of Buddha he was glorified. He was placed among the Brahminical gods, by whom he was served. A multitude of cloisters were erected in his honor, in which his relics were believed to be preserved. On the basis of the simpler doctrine and precepts of the founder, there accumulated a mass of superstitious beliefs and observances.

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.—After the death of Buddha, it is said that his disciples, to the number of five hundred, assembled, and divided his teaching into three branches,—his own words, his rules of discipline, and his system of doctrine. During the next two centuries Buddhism spread over northern India. One of the most conspicuous agents in its diffusion was Asoka, the king of Behar, who was converted to the Buddhistic faith, and published its tenets throughout India. His edicts, in which they were set forth, were engraved on rocks and pillars and in caves. He organized missionary efforts among the aborigines, using only peaceful means, and combining the healing of disease, and other forms of philanthropy, with preaching. He carried the Buddhistic faith as far as Ceylon. It spread over Burmah (450 A.D.). Siam was converted (638 A.D.), and Java between the fifth and seventh centuries of our era. Through Central Asia the Buddhistic missionaries passed into China in the second century B.C., and Buddhism became an established system there as early as 65 A.D. At present, this religion numbers among its professed adherents more than a third of the human race.

THE BRAHMINICAL RE-ACTION.—In India Buddhism did not supplant the old religion. The Brahmans modified their system. They made their theology more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which were not known in previous times. The divinities, Brahma, the author of all things, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the creed, Krishna being one of his incarnate names. For centuries Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed, and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and thus to give rise to modern Hinduism. For ten centuries Buddhism, with multitudinous adherents abroad, has had no existence in the land of its birth.

THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.—In 327 B.C., Alexander the Great advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings, Porus, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.) and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices of Chandra Gupti, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent Græco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements, and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic faith, were not without a marked influence—the precise lines of which it is difficult to trace—upon the history and life of India during the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. The Dravidian people in southern India, made up of non-Aryans, number at present forty-six millions.

LITERATURE.—Mill's History of India (Wilson's edition, 9 vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS, Indian Wisdom; Max Müller's History of Sanskrit Literature; EARTH'S The Religions of India, 1882; Encycl. Brit., Arts. India, Brahmanism, Buddhism.

SECTION II. THE EARLIEST GROUP OF NATIONS.

CHAPTER I. EGYPT.

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.—When the curtain that hides the far distant past is lifted, we find in the valley of the Nile a people of a dark color, tinged with red, and a peculiar physiognomy, who had long existed there. Of their beginnings, there is no record. It is not likely that they came down the river from the south, as some have thought; more probably they were of Asiatic origin. Their language, though it certainly shows affinities with the Semitic tongues in its grammar, is utterly dissimilar in its vocabulary: its modern descendant is the Coptic, no longer a spoken dialect. The Egyptians were of the Caucasian variety, but not white like the Lybians on the west. On the east were tribes of a yellowish complexion and various lineage, belonging to the numerous people whom the Egyptians designated as Amu. On the south, in what was called Ethiopia, was a negro people; and, also beyond them and eastward, a dusky race, of totally different origin, a branch of the widely diffused Cushites.

THE NILE: DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.—Egypt (styled by its ancient inhabitants, from the color of the soil deposited by the Nile, Kem or the Black Land, and by the Hebrews called Mizraim) is the creation of the great river. "Egypt," says Herodotus, "is the gift of the Nile;" and this is not only true, as the historian meant it, physically, because it is the Nile that rescued the land from the arid waste by which it is bordered; but the course of Egyptian history—the occupations, habits, and religion of the people—was largely determined by the characteristics of the river. The sources of the Nile have had in all ages the fascination of mystery, and have been a fruitful theme for conjecture. It was reserved for modern explorers to ascertain that it takes its rise in equatorial Africa, in the two great lakes, the Albert and Victoria Nyanzas. From that region, fed by few tributaries, it flows to the Mediterranean, a distance of two thousand miles, but breaks, as it nears the sea, into two main and several minor arms. These spread fruitfulness over the broad plain called, from its shape, the Delta. Above the Delta the fringe of productive land has a width of only a few miles on either side of the stream. Its fertility is due to the yearly inundation which, as the effect of the rainfall of Abyssinia, begins early in July, and terminates in November, when the river, having slowly risen in the interval to an average height of twenty-three or twenty-four feet, reaches in its gradual descent the ordinary level. This narrow belt of territory, annually enriched with a layer of fertile mud, is in striking contrast with the barren regions, parched by the sun, on either side, with the long chain of Arabian mountains that adjoin it on the east, and with the low hills of the Lybian desert on the west. By dikes, canals, and reservoirs, the beneficent river from the most ancient times has been made to irrigate the land above, where are the towns and dwellings of the people, and thus to extend and keep up its unrivaled fertility. The country of old was divided into two parts,—Upper Egypt, as it is now called, with Thebes for its principal city, extending from the first cataract, near Syene, to the Memphian district; and Lower Egypt, embracing the rest of the country on the north, including the Delta. The two divisions were marked by differences of dialect and of customs. The country was further divided into nomes, or districts, about forty in all, but varying in number at different times. They were parted from one another by boundary stones. Each had its own civil organization, a capital, and a center of worship.

EARLY CULTURE.—At a far remote day, there existed in Lower Egypt an advanced type of culture. Sepulchers, with their inscriptions and sculptures, were made of so solid material that they have remained to testify to this fact. When the pyramids were built, mechanical skill was highly developed, Egyptian art had reached a point beyond which it scarcely advanced, and the administration of government had attained substantially to the form in which it continued to exist. The use of writing, the division of the year, the beginnings of the sciences and of literature, are found in this earliest period. Egyptian culture, as far as we can determine, was not borrowed. It was a native product. The earliest period was the period of most growth. The prevailing tendency was to crystallize all arts and customs into definite, established forms, and to subject every thing to fixed rules. The desire to preserve what had been gained overmastered the impulses to progress: individuality and enterprise were blighted by an excessive spirit of conservatism. Moreover, the culture of the Egyptians never disengaged itself from its connection with every-day practical needs, or the material spirit that lay at its root. They did not, like the Greeks, soar into the atmosphere of theoretical science and speculation. They did not break loose from the fetters of tradition.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS.—We owe our knowledge of ancient Egypt chiefly to hieroglyphical writing. The hieroglyphs, except those denoting numbers, were pictures of objects. The writing is of three kinds. The first, the hieroglyphical, is composed of literal pictures, as a circle, O, for the sun, a curved line for the moon, a pointed oval for the mouth. The second sort of characters, the hieratic, and the third, the demotic, are curtailed pictures, which can thus be written more rapidly. They are seldom seen on the monuments, but are the writing generally found on the papyrus rolls or manuscripts. They are written from right to left. The hieroglyphs proper may be written either way, or in a perpendicular line. In the demotic, or people's writing, the characters are somewhat more curtailed, or abridged, than in the hieratic, or priestly, style. There were four methods of using the hieroglyphics in historical times. First, there were the primary, representational characters, the literal pictures. Secondly, the characters were used figuratively, as symbols. Thus a circle, O, meant not only the sun, but also "day"; the crescent denoted not only the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing," etc. So one object was substituted for another analogous to it,—as the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt. Thirdly, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, an object would be denoted by letters (in a way that we shall soon explain), and a picture be added to determine, or make clear, what was meant. After proper names, they designated the sex; after the names of other classes, as animals, they specified the particular genus. Fourthly, the bulk of the hieroglyphs are phonetic. They stand for sounds. The picture stood for the initial sound of the name of the object depicted. Thus the picture of an eagle, akhôm, represented "A." Unfortunately, numerous objects were employed for a like purpose, to indicate the same sound. Hence the number of characters was multiplied. The whole number of signs used in writing is not less than nine hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone—a large black slab of stone—with an identical inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished to Champollion (1810) and to Young the clew to the deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and red ink.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.—These are (1) the inscriptions on the monuments. These, it must be remembered, are commonly in praise of the departed, and of their achievements. (2) The list of kings in the Turin papyrus, a very important Egyptian manuscript, discovered by Champollion. (3) Manetho. An Egyptian priest, he wrote, about 250 B.C., a history. Only his lists of dynasties are preserved as given in an Armenian version of Eusebius, a writer of the fourth century, and in George Syncellus, a writer of the eighth century, who professed to embody the statements of Eusebius and of another author, Julius Africanus, probably of the second century, who had also quoted the lists of Manetho. Manetho is of great importance; but we do not know accurately what his original text was, it being so differently reported. His details frequently clash with the monuments. Moreover, the method adopted by him in making his lists is, in essential points, subject to doubt. (4) The Greek historians. Herodotus had visited Egypt (between 460 and 450 B.C.), and conferred with Egyptian priests. Diodorus, also, in the time of Julius Caesar, had visited Egypt. He is largely a copyist of Herodotus. (5) The Old Testament. Here we have many instructive references to Egypt. But, until Rehoboam, the kings of Egypt have in the Scriptures the general name of Pharaoh. Hence it is not always easy to identify them with corresponding kings on the Egyptian lists.

CHRONOLOGY.—The date of the beginning of the first dynasty of Egyptian rulers is a controverted point; there are advocates of a longer and of a shorter chronology. The data are not sufficient to settle accurately the questions in dispute. Some judicious scholars put the beginning of the first dynasty as early as 5000 B.C.; others have wished to bring it down even lower than 3000 B.C. Egyptian history, prior to the Persian conquest (525 B.C.), divides itself into three sections,—the Old Empire, having its seat at Memphis; the Middle Empire, following upon a period of strife and division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders, the Hyksos; and the New Empire, the era of conquest, by foreign power, and of downfall.

The expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Rehoboam, is ascertained, from both Egyptian and Hebrew sources, to have been not earlier than 971 B.C., and within twenty-five years of that date. The nineteenth Egyptian dynasty began about the year 1350 B.C. The Middle Empire is thought by some to have commenced as early as 2200 B.C.; by others as late as 1720 B.C. When we go backward into the Old Empire, the sources of uncertainty are multiplied. The main difficulty is to determine whether the lists of dynasties are consecutive throughout, or in part contemporary. One class of scholars place the date of the first historic king, Menes, two or three thousand years earlier than the point assigned by the other class! The date of Menes given by Böckh is 5702 B.C.; by Lenormant, 5004 B.C.; by Brugsch, 4455 B.C.; by Lepsius, 3852 B.C.; by Bunsen, 3623 or 3059 B.C.; E. Meyer makes 3180 B.C. the lowest possible date for Menes; 3233 B.C. is the date assigned by Duncker. On the contrary, R. S. Poole gives 2717 B.C.; Wilkinson, 2691 B.C.; and G. Rawlinson, between 2450 and 2250 B.C. There are no means of fully determining the controversy, as Rawlinson has shown (History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii., p. 19). It appears to be well ascertained that Egyptian civilization was in being at least as far back as about 4000 B.C.

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM.—The bulk of the people were farmers and shepherds, indisposed to war. The land was owned in large estates by the nobles, who were possessed of multitudes of serfs and of cattle. They had in their service, also, artisans, oarsmen, and traffickers. The centers of industry were the numerous cities. Here the nobles had their mansions, and the gods their temples with retinues of priests. But the Nomes had each its particular jurisdiction. The traces of two original communities are preserved in the mythological legends and in the titles of the kings. The oldest inscriptions discover to us a systematic organization of the state. The king is supreme: under him are the rulers of the two halves of the kingdom. He creates the army, and appoints its generals. The whole strength of the kingdom is given to him for the erection of the temples which he raises to the gods, or of the stupendous pyramid which is to form his sepulcher. The nobility make up his court; from them he selects his chief officers of state,—his secretary, his treasurer, his inspector of quarries, etc. The princes and princesses are educated in connection with the children of the highest nobles. A body-guard protects the monarch: he shows himself to the people only in stately processions. All who approach him prostrate themselves at his feet. He is the descendant of the gods. The Pharaohs are even looked upon as gods incarnate. They are clothed with all power on earth. When they die, they go to the gods; and rites of worship are instituted for them. That there was a well-ordered and efficient civil administration admits of no doubt. Whether there existed a thrifty middle class or not we can not decide. The tendency was for the child to follow the vocation of the parent, but there were no rigid barriers of caste. Not until the New Empire, was there an attempt to build up such a wall even about the priesthood.

THE RELIGION.—With the Egyptians, religion was a matter of supreme and absorbing interest. There was a popular religion; and there arose early, in connection with it, an esoteric or secret doctrine relative to the gods and to the legends respecting them,—a lore that pertained especially to the priesthood. Moreover, while the religious system, from the earliest date, is polytheistic, we have proof that the educated class, sooner or later, put a monotheistic interpretation upon it, and believed in one supreme deity, of whom all the particular gods were so many forms and manifestations, or that one being under different names. Whether this more elevated faith preceded the reigning system, or was a later offspring of it, is a matter of dispute. For a long period the two co-existed, and without collision.

The great divinities of Egypt are pre-eminently gods of light. They are associated with the SUN. With the agency of that luminary, with his rising and setting, they stand in a close relation. All Egypt worships the sun under the names of Ra and Horus. Horus is the adversary of Seth (called Typhon by the Greeks), the god of darkness, and is born anew every morning to attack and conquer him. In honor of Ra, the lofty obelisks, or symbols of the sun's rays, are erected, each of which has its own name and priests. With the sun-gods are joined the goddesses of the heavens,—Nut, Hather, Isis, and others. But Osiris became the most famous sun-god. His worship was originally at Abydos and Busiris. At length his cult spread over the whole land. In the legend, he is murdered by Seth; but Horus is his avenger. Horus conquers the power of darkness. Henceforward Osiris reigns in the kingdom of the West, the home of the dead. He is the sun in the realm of the shades. He receives the dead, is their protector, and the judge whose final award is blessedness or perpetual misery. The departed, if their lives have not been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The principal god at Memphis is Ptah, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by the Greeks, Hephaestus. At Thebes, Ammon was revered as the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the sun. Thoth is the chief moon-god, who presides over the reckoning of time. He is the god of letters and of the arts, the author of sacred books. The Nile is worshiped under the name of Hapi, being figured as a man with pendent breasts, an emblem of the fertility of the river. The gods were often connected in triads, there being in each a father, a mother, and a son. To bring to them the right offerings, and to repeat the right formulas, was a matter of momentous concern. Homage was directed to the material objects with which the activity of the god was thought to be connected, and in which he was believed to be present. All nature was full of deities. There were sacred trees, stones, utensils. Above all, animals, in their mysterious life, were identified with the divinities. Worship was offered to the crocodile, the cat, the bull, etc. In the temples these creatures were carefully tended and obsequiously served.

EMBALMING.—Believing that the soul survives death, the Egyptians linked its weal with the preservation of the body, from which they could not conceive its destiny to be wholly dissevered. Thus arose the universal practice of embalming, and of presenting, at intervals, offerings of food and drink to the departed. The tomb contains a room for sacred services to the dead. The most ancient structures are sepulchers. They were the germ of the pyramid, in which rested the sarcophagus of the king.

RELIGION AND MORALITY.—The leading gods were held to be the makers of the world and of men, the givers of good, the rulers and disposers of all things. Morality was not separated from religion. The gods punished unrighteousness and inhumanity. In the age of the pyramid-builders, family life was not wanting in purity; the wife and mother was held in respect: monogamy prevailed. Ma-t was the goddess of truth: in the myth of Osiris, it is in her hall that the dead are judged.

THE PRIESTS.—The priests are the guardians of religious rites. They are acquainted with the origin and import of them. Their knowledge is communicated only to select believers. It was a body of traditions, guarded as a mysterious treasure. But the priests, certainly until a late period, do not control the king. The civil authority is uppermost.

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.—The most important Egyptian book that has come down to us is the Book of the Dead. It relates, in a mystical strain, the adventures of the soul after death, and explains how, by reciting the names and titles of numberless gods, and by means of other theological knowledge, the soul can make its way to the hall of Osiris. It is a monument of the pedantic and punctilious formalism of the Egyptian ritual. Most of the papyri that have been preserved are of a religious character. There are songs not void of beauty. The moral writings are of a decidedly higher grade. Works of fiction are constructed with considerable skill, and are sometimes not wanting in humor. Some of the hymns are not destitute of merit. It can not be doubted that there were important mathematical writings. Astronomical observations were very early made. In medicine, we have writings which prove that considerable proficiency was attained in this department. But here, as in other branches, the spirit was empirical rather than scientific in the higher sense; and the result was to petrify knowledge in an unalterable form. At length rules of medical treatment, with specific remedies, were definitely settled, from which it was a crime against the state to deviate.

THE OLD EMPIRE (to about 2100 B.C.).—Senoferu, who belongs to the third dynasty, is the first king who has left behind him a monumental inscription. A rock-tablet in the peninsula of Sinai gives him the title of conqueror. By some, the pyramid of Meydoun, built in three distinct stages to a height of 125 feet, is ascribed to him, and is believed to be his sepulcher. At Saccarah is a pyramid of like form, 200 feet in height. Khufu, the Cheops of Herodotus, was the builder of the "Great Pyramid" of Ghizeh, the largest and loftiest building on earth. Its original perpendicular height was not less than 480 feet, the length of its side 764 feet, and the area covered by it more than thirteen acres. Near it are the small pyramids, which were the sepulchers of his wives and other relatives. The statues of Khafra remain, and the wooden mummy-case of Menkaura, with the myth of Osiris recorded on it. These were the builders of the two other most celebrated pyramids, the second and the third. With the long reign of Unas closes the first era in Egyptian history. His unfinished pyramid, built of huge blocks of limestone, indicates that he died too soon to complete it. From this date, back to the epoch of Senoferu, are included nearly three centuries. In this period of prevalent peace, art had the opportunity to develop. The spirit of progress in this department had not yet been cramped by the "hieratic canon," the fixed rules set for artistic labor. There is evidence of considerable knowledge in anatomy and medicine. The myth of Osiris expanded, and his worship spread.

With the sixth dynasty a new epoch begins. The most powerful monarch in this series is Pepi. He levied armies, conquered the negroes of Nubia, and waged war against the nomads of the eastern desert. The interval from the sixth to the tenth dynasty was marked by usurpations and insurrections. The district governors sought to make themselves independent. Monarchs rose and fell. Syrian invaders appear to have seized the occasion to attack the country. Heliopolis, with Tum for its sun-god, is the center of the new symbolical lore of the priesthood. Power is transferred to Thebes, and Ammon becomes the embodiment of the monotheistic conception, the supreme deity.

The Theban ruling-house gradually extended its supremacy over the land. The kings of the twelfth dynasty have left their inscriptions everywhere, and of several of them gigantic portrait-statues remain. Amenemhat I. and his successors are prosperous sovereigns. They carry on a lively intercourse of trade with the small states of Syria, reaching possibly to Babylon. Under the twelfth dynasty, the valley of the upper Nile was conquered. Usurtasen III., in after times, was revered as the subduer of the Nubian land. By monarchs of this epoch, vast structures, like the temple of Ammon at Thebes and the temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, were erected. Amenemhat III. built the immense artificial reservoir, Lake Moeris, to receive and dispense the waters of the Nile. Under the twelfth dynasty is the blossoming period of literature. The carving of hieroglyphics and the execution of the details of art reach their perfection. It is the culminating point of Egyptian culture.

THE MIDDLE EMPIRE (FROM ABOUT 2100 TO 1600 B.C.).—The season of prosperity under the twelfth dynasty was followed by anarchy and the downfall of the Theban rule. According to Manetho, it was under a king named Timaos that a horde of invaders—the Hyksos, or "shepherds"—came in from the north, devastated the country, and made themselves its rulers. They were probably of Semitic descent, but nothing more is known as to their origin. In connection with them, Semitic, and in particular Canaanite, elements penetrated into Egypt, and left their traces in its language. The residence of their kings was Tanis, on the eastern Delta, a splendid city, which they still more adorned. They conquered Memphis, but their power was not permanently established in Lower Egypt. The duration of their control was a number of centuries,—how many can only be conjectured. It is believed by some scholars that either Apepi, or Nub, kings of the Hyksos line, was the sovereign who made Joseph his prime minister, and invited his family to settle in the land of Goshen. The elevation of a foreigner and a Semite to an exalted office is thought to be less improbable in connection with a Semitic dynasty.

The New Empire (from 1600 to 525 B.C.).—The expulsion of the Hyksos was effected by Aahmes I., first king of the eighteenth dynasty. It was accomplished, however, not all at once, but gradually. From this event Egypt enters on a new stage in its career. It becomes a military, an aggressive, and a conquering state. Notwithstanding the enormous sacrifice of life that must have been involved in the erection of pyramids and in other public works, the Egyptians had not been a cruel people: compared with most Semitic peoples, they had been disposed to peace. But now a martial spirit is evoked. A military class arises. Wars for plunder and conquest ensue. The use of horses in battle is a new and significant fact. The character of the people changes for the worse. The priestly class become more compact and domineering. Temples are the principal edifices, in the room of massive sepulchers.

Under Thothmes I. and his successors, especially Thothmes III., wars were successfully waged against the Syrians, and against the Ethiopians on the south. The palaces and temples of Thebes, including the gigantic structures at Karnak and Luxor, are witnesses to the grandeur of these monarchs. The Egyptian arms were carried through Syria, and as far even as Nineveh. During the reigns of Amenophis III. and Amenophis IV., that is, in the latter half of the fifteenth century B.C., the Amarna Letters (see p. 44) were written. Under the Ramessides, the conquests of Egypt reached their farthest limit.

RAMSES II.—Ramses II., or Ramses the Great (1340-1273 B.C.),—who was called by the Greeks Sesostris, a name with which they linked many fabulous narratives,—is the most brilliant personage in Egyptian history. He is the first of the renowned conquerors, the forerunner of the Alexanders and Napoleons. His monuments are scattered over all Egypt. In his childhood he was associated on the throne with his father, himself a magnificent monarch, Seti I. In the seventh year of the sole reign of the son he had to encounter a formidable confederacy under the lead of the Syrian Hittites—the "Khita"—in the north-east, a powerful nation. How he saved himself by his personal valor, on the field of Kadesh, is celebrated in the Egyptian Iliad, the heroic poem of Pentaur. A subsequent treaty with this people is one of the most precious memorials of his reign.

THE HITTITES.—Recent explorations have shown that the Hittites of Scripture were families, or smaller communities, in Palestine, of a people whose proper seat was in northern Syria, especially the country lying along the Orontes; their territory being bounded on the east by the Euphrates, and extending westward into the Taurus Mountains. In one place they are spoken of as distant (Judg. i. 26). The "Khita" of the Egyptians, called "Khatti" by the Assyrians, were a civilized and powerful nation, whose sway was so extended that their outposts were at times on the western coast of Asia Minor. They were a non-Semitic people. The great victory of Ramses (1320 B.C.) was with difficulty won. The Hittites were also rivals of the Assyrians from an early period. At length Sargon captured their capital, Carchemish (717 B.C.), and broke down their power. Numerous Hittite inscriptions have been discovered, written in a hieroglyphic script which has not yet (1903) been deciphered.

Subsequently we find Ramses in Galilee, as it was called later: we find him storming the city of Askalon in Philistia, and in various military expeditions, in which he brought home with him multitudes of captives. The mighty temples which he built at Abydos, Thebes, and Memphis, and the gorgeous palace, "the House of Ramses," south of Karnak, were in keeping with other displays of his energy and magnificence.

THE BONDAGE OF THE ISRAELITES.—Ramses II. has been generally believed to be "the Pharaoh of the oppression," under whom the Hebrews suffered; and his son Menephthah, to be the Pharaoh under whom the exodus took place. Recent discoveries have rendered these conclusions very doubtful, however. It is also quite uncertain how long the Egyptian bondage lasted. According to the Hebrew Old Testament, its duration was 430 years; according to the Septuagint, or Greek version, half that period (as implied in Gal. iii. 17).

To THE PERSIAN CONQUEST.—From about 1500 to 1300 B.C., Egypt was the foremost nation in culture, arts, and military prowess. Under the later kings bearing the name of Ramses, the empire began to decay. The Ethiopians in the south revolted, and set up an independent kingdom, Meroe, of which Napata was the capital. Shishak (961-940 B.C.) aspired to restore the Egyptian rule in the East. He marched into Judæa, and captured and plundered Jerusalem. He made Rehoboam, king of Judah, a tributary, and strengthened Jeroboam, the ally of Egypt. He even led his forces across the valley of the Jordan. At length (730 B.C.) the Ethiopians gained the upper hand in Egypt. Their three kings form the twenty-fifth dynasty. As the power of Egypt was on the wane, the power of Assyria was more and more in the ascendant. Shabak joined hands with Hoshea, king of Israel, but was defeated by the Assyrians, under Sargon II., in a pitched battle at Raphia, in which the superiority of the Asiatic kingdom was evinced. Later (701 B.C.) Sennacherib defeated an Egyptian army, sent for the relief of Ekron, and made Hezekiah a tributary. Tirhakah, the ally of Hezekiah, continued the struggle. His army was saved from overthrow by the disaster which happened to Sennacherib's host in the neighboring camp on the eve of battle. Twenty years later, he was vanquished by an invading army under the son and successor of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon. The rule of the Ethiopian dynasty was subverted. The Assyrians intrusted the government to twenty governors, of whom the most were natives. Of these governors, one, then king of Sais, Psammeticus I. (663-616 B.C.), in alliance with Gyges, king of Lydia, and with the aid of Carians, Phoenicians, and Lycians, cast off the Assyrian yoke, and became sole ruler of Egypt. This epoch is marked by the introduction of numerous foreigners into the country, and by the exertion of a powerful and lasting Greek influence. Neku II.—the Necho of Scripture—(610-594 B.C.), the son of Psammeticus I., defeated Josiah, king of Judah, at Megiddo (608 B.C.); and Josiah fell in the battle. But, advancing to Carchemish by the Euphrates, Neku, in turn, was vanquished by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which had now become the formidable power. The defeat of Neku ended Egyptian rule in the East. Apries (588 B.C.), the Hophra of Scripture, was dethroned by a revolt of his own soldiers, in a war with the Greeks of Cyrene, and was succeeded by Aahmes, or Amasis (570-526), under whose auspices foreigners, and especially Greeks, acquired an augmented influence. Egypt had escaped from permanent subjection to Assyria or Babylon; but a new empire, the Persian Empire of Cyrus, was advancing on the path to universal dominion. Cyrus was too busy with other undertakings to attack Egypt; but Cambyses, his successor, led an army into that country; and, having defeated Psammeticus III., at the battle of Pelusium, he made it a Persian province (525 B.C.).

LITERATURE.—See the list on p. 16. 1. Works on Oriental History as a whole: DUNCKER'S History of Antiquity. It includes, also, Greece. Lenormant and Chevalier, Manual of the Ancient History of the East (2 vols.); G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies (3 vols.), The Sixth Great Monarchy (Parthia), The Seventh Great Monarchy (the Sassanidæ), The Origin of Nations (1 vol.), Manual of Ancient History (1 vol.), Egypt and Babylon (1 vol.). LENORMANT, The Beginnings of History (1 vol.); P. Smith, The Ancient History of the East (1 vol.), History of the World (Ancient History, 3 vols.); Maspero, History of the Ancient Orient (3 vols.); Doublier, Gesch. des Alterthums (from the cultural point of view, 1 vol.); E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterthums.

2. Works on the History of Egypt. BRUGSCH-BEY, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs (2 vols.); G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt (2 vols.);, Aperçu de l'Histoire d'Egypte (1864), and numerous other writings; WILKINSON, Manners and Customs of Egypt (3 vols.); ERMAN, Egypt; Petrie, History of Egypt; Erman, Egyptian Life (1894); Birch, Records of the Past (translations of Egyptian and Assyrian Monuments, 11 vols.), Egypt from the Earliest Times; Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt (1883); FERGUSSON'S History of Architecture; the great illustrative works of the French savans under Napoleon I.; the great illustrated works of Rossellini, and the works of Lepsius; the novels of Ebers, The Sisters; Uarda; The Egyptian Princess.