The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos

by A. H. Sayce

Chapter V. The Age Of The Ptolemies.

Judah had profited by the revolution which had been so disastrous to the monarchy of the Nile. The overthrow of the Babylonian empire and the rise of Cyrus had brought deliverance from exile and the restoration of the temple and its services. In the Jewish colony at Jerusalem, Cyrus and his successors had, as it were, a bridle upon Egypt; gratitude to their deliverer and freedom to enjoy the theocracy which had taken the place of the Davidic monarchy made the Jewish people an outpost and garrison upon whose loyalty the Persian king could rely.

The yoke of the Zoroastrian Darius and his descendants pressed heavily, on the other hand, upon the priests and people of Egypt. Time after time they attempted to revolt. Their first rebellion, under Khabbash, saved Greece from the legions of Darius and postponed the day of Persian invasion to a time when the incapable Xerxes sat upon the throne of [pg 135] his energetic father. A second time they rose in insurrection in the reign of Artaxerxes i., the successor of Xerxes. But under Artaxerxes ii. came a more formidable outbreak, which ended in the recovery of Egyptian independence and the establishment of the last three dynasties of native kings.

For sixty-five years (from b.c. 414 to 349) Egypt preserved its independence. More than once the Persians sought to recover it, but they were foiled by the Spartan allies of the Pharaoh or by the good fortune of the Egyptians. But civil feuds and cowardice sapped the strength of the Egyptian resistance. Greek mercenaries and sailors now fought in the ranks of the Persians as well as in those of the Egyptians, and the result of the struggle between Persia and Egypt was in great measure dependent on the amount of pay the two sides could afford to give them. The army was insubordinate, and between the Greek and Egyptian soldiers there was jealousy and feud. Nektanebo ii. (b.c. 367-49), the last of the Pharaohs, had dethroned his own father, and though he had once driven the Persian king Artaxerxes Ochus back from the coasts of Egypt, he failed to do so a second time. The Greeks were left to defend themselves as best they could at Pelusium, while Nektanebo retired to Memphis with 60,000 worthless native troops. From thence [pg 136] he fled to Ethiopia with his treasures, leaving his country in the hands of the Persian. Ochus wreaked his vengeance on the Egyptian priests, destroying the temples, demanding a heavy ransom for the sacred records he had robbed, setting up an ass—a symbol in Egyptian eyes of all that was evil and unclean—as the patron-god of the conquered land, and slaying the sacred bull Apis in sacrifice to the new divinity. The murder of Ochus by his Egyptian eunuch Bagoas was the penalty he paid for these outrages on the national faith.

Egypt never again was free. Its rulers have been of manifold races and forms of faith, but they have never again been Egyptians. Persians, Greeks and Romans, Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Mameluk slaves and Turks, Frenchmen and Englishmen, have all governed or misgoverned it, but throughout this long page of its history there is no sign of native political life. Religion or taxation has alone seemed able to stir the people into movement or revolt. For aspirations after national freedom we look in vain.

The Persian was not left long in the possession of his rebellious province. Egypt opened her gates to Alexander of Macedon, as in later ages she opened her gates to the Arab 'Amru. The Greeks had long been associated in the Egyptian mind with opposition to the hated Persian, and it was as a Greek that [pg 137] Alexander entered the country. Memphis and Thebes welcomed him, and he did his best to prove to his subjects that he had indeed come among them as one of their ancient kings. Hardly had he reached Memphis before he went in state to the temple of Apis and offered sacrifice to the sacred bull. Then, after founding Alexandria at the spot where the native village of Rakoti stood, he made his way to the Oasis of Ammon, the modern Siwah, among the sands of the distant desert, and there was greeted by the high-priest of the temple as the son of the god. Like the Pharaohs of old, the Macedonian conqueror became the son of Amon-Ra, and in Egypt at least claimed divine honours.

Before leaving Egypt Alexander appointed the nomarchs who were to govern it, and ordered that justice should be administered according to the ancient law of the land. He also sent 7000 Samaritans into the Thebaid; some of them were settled in the Fayyûm, and in the papyri discovered by Professor Petrie at Hawâra mention is made of a village which they had named Samaria. Appointing Kleomenês prefect of Egypt and collector of the taxes, Alexander now hurried away to the Euphrates, there to overthrow the shattered relics of the Persian Empire.

It was while he was at Ekbatana that his friend [pg 138] Hêphæstiôn died, and Alexander wrote to Egypt to inquire of the oracle of Ammon what honours it was lawful for him to pay to the dead man. In reply Hêphæstiôn was pronounced to be a god, and a temple was accordingly erected to him at Alexandria, and the new lighthouse on the island of Pharos was called after his name.

When Alexander died suddenly and unexpectedly, the council of his generals which assembled at Babylon declared his half-brother, Philip Arridæus, to be his successor. But they reserved to themselves all the real power in Alexander's empire. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, chose Egypt as the seat of his government, which was accordingly handed over to him by Kleomenês on his arrival there, a year after the accession of the new king. His first act was to put Kleomenês to death.