[CHAPTER IV.]
Civil War and Break-up of the Kingdom—Reunion and Recovery.
The last sovereign of the sixth dynasty was a queen named Nitocris. After her death occurs a perfect blank in Egyptian history. Not a line of hieroglyphic writing, not a fragment of a ruin has survived from this period of darkness and silence. Of the seventh dynasty the very names are lost; of the eighth, nothing but the names has been preserved. The names, however, are so similar to those of the sixth dynasty, that we may conclude that these rulers were of the same royal line and descendants of Mena.
It may be gathered from the bare fact of the accession of a female sovereign that the direct male line had failed. Nitocris appears to have left no children, and it is easy to imagine how rival claims and dissension would arise; each claimant asserting his right as next of kin, to wear the double crown.
But at the same time the double crown lost much of its splendour. Other pretenders started up, ambitious men, claiming no right of kinship certainly, but anxious to make their own profit during this period of discord and weakness in the ruling house. Egypt was divided into forty-two districts or ‘nomes,’ and each of these possessed its own governor (hak, or prince, he was called) and each was to some extent a government complete within itself. The office of these prince-governors was often hereditary, and there was always a danger lest some powerful and popular governor should aim at setting up a petty kingdom of his own, in the event of the ruling hand becoming enfeebled. During a female reign the controlling power would be lessened, whilst the prospect of a disputed succession was awakening ambitious hopes and schemes. So long as Nitocris lived, the reverence due to a direct representative of the Pharaohs might prove some restraint, but at her death the smouldering ambitions and rivalries of scions of the royal house and of powerful provincial governors could hardly fail to burst forth, and find vent in fierce flames of discord and of civil war.
Would we form to ourselves some idea of the state of Egypt during the ensuing centuries, we must picture a feeble scion of the ancient line ruling at Memphis over a territory barely extending beyond the capital; for in the north the foreign races would seize their opportunity for invading and encroaching upon the rich Delta land, thus blocking the great highway by the river; and farther south a rival dynasty is established at Heracleopolis, in Middle Egypt, not to reckon the other petty kingdoms or principalities into which the country is broken up—the whole a scene of ceaseless jealousies and mutual conflict.
At length in the extreme south certain king-like figures emerge of a more commanding appearance, and seen by a clearer light. The Antefs first, a family of ancient and illustrious, though not royal descent, who had set up their dominion at a town then insignificant and unknown to fame—Thebes. The burial-places of the kings of this family (who are sometimes reckoned in the eleventh dynasty) have been discovered in Western Thebes. Their tombs are plain, and but little ornamented; there are some brick pyramids of no great size, and some fragments of small broken obelisks. In one of the memorial chambers is depicted an Antef who assumed the title of the ‘Great;’ he appears to have been a sportsman, and is to be seen surrounded by his dogs, each of which is distinguished by its name. From the days of these kings a literary relic also has come down to us. The ‘festal dirge’ of the Egyptians bears the name of the Song of the House of King Antef. Many, many ages later, Herodotus, travelling in Egypt, told of the custom which prevailed of carrying round during an entertainment a figure representing a mummy, whilst the bearer repeated the words: ‘Cast your eyes upon this figure; after death you yourself will resemble it; eat, drink, then, and be happy;’ words plainly recalling the ‘solemn festal dirge’ which dated back to the ‘House of Antef,’ about 2000 years before his time, and which was to the following effect:—
‘All hail the good Prince, the worthy man who has passed away! Behold the end! the end of those who possess houses and of those who have them not. I have heard the sayings of the wise:—“What is prosperity? All passes as though it had not been—no man returneth thence to tell us what they say or do.”
‘Fulfil, then, thy desire, O man, whilst yet thou livest. Anoint thine head with oil, and clothe thee in fine linen adorned with gold—Make use of God’s good gifts.
‘For the day will come for thee also when voices are heard no more; he who is at rest heareth not the cry of those who mourn. No mourning may deliver him that is within the tomb.