To the north-west of this stupendous and overpowering hall is an hypæthral court 100 ft. longer, and of the same width of 329 ft. A double row of columns traverses its central avenue. It has corridors on each side. It was left incomplete. This is plain from the enormous pyramidal propylons, by which it is entered, never having been sculptured. None who came after the Great Rameses were able to rise to the height of his conceptions. In the unsculptured walls of these propylons are the sockets, drilled, horizontally, through their whole thickness, for holding the beams which supported the lofty staffs for the flags which were used on great occasions. These lofty towers and these far-seen flags connected the temples of Karnak with the temples on the western bank of the river, and with the funeral processions to the catacombs of the kings in the opposite valley of the Libyan range, just as the south-western propylons, and the dromos of sphinxes, connected them with Luxor.
Though the name of Sesortosen, or Ositarsen I., is the first that appears on this series of temples, it would be a mistake to suppose that the date of the greatness of the city must be taken from his reign. This is impossible, for he was the founder of the dynasty which came from Thebes. Thebes, therefore, in his time—4,500 years ago—had become sufficiently powerful to give a dynasty to Egypt. And when we look at its site, the island in the river, the great extent of fertile land on the east bank, with no inconsiderable extent also on the west, and the convenient approach of the Libyan Hills to the river side, we see that this was a spot designed by nature for one of the great cities of old Egypt. It was great under the old monarchy, and gave to the country the two last dynasties of that first monumentally-known period of its history. During the succeeding 400 years of the Hyksos domination, a cloud of almost impenetrable darkness settled down upon it, as upon everything else Egyptian. It rose under, and with the new monarchy. The disadvantages of the site of Memphis, and the conveniences of that of Thebes, had been discovered. It, therefore, now became unreservedly the repository of all the glories, and the chief shrine of the religion of the country. The spoils of war, the tribute of subject nations, the rent of the royal demesne, which comprised one-third of the land of Egypt, were spent here. Next to the court came the numerous and wealthy body of the priests; and they, too, were chiefly—though they had also other sources of income—supported by the rents of their estates. Besides these there was the official class, which again we know was numerous and wealthy. Trade also must have largely contributed to the wealth of Thebes; for it was the emporium for the camel-borne produce of the interior of the continent, and for the water-borne commerce with Egypt of the East Coast of Africa, of Arabia, and of India. We may form an estimate of the extent of this trade from the magnificence of the Temples, which, of old times, in the East was generally proportionate to the amount and value of the commerce carried on under their protection. From these sources the growth and splendour of the new capital were fed for many centuries. We see from the tombs that in its best days the wealthy were not afraid to use, and to display, their wealth. The arts that embellish life, and which had been inherited from the old monarchy, made great advances. Society developed tastes and arrangements not altogether unlike those of our own time.
At last the thunder-cloud, which had long been gathering in the north-east, drifted down to Egypt, and the storm burst upon it. The Persian had come. And the grand old ship went to pieces. In Asia the days of Sethos and of Rameses had never been forgotten. The gods, that had in their arks gone up with them to battle and to victory, were now defaced and dishonoured. The temples which had been built by the captives, and with the spoils brought out of Asia, were now sought for at Karnak, and dilapidated. The ruthless work the Egyptians had done was repaid ruthlessly. It was delightful to the soul of the Persian, now that his opportunity had come, to job the iron into the soul of the Egyptian.
But such a civilization as that of old Egypt takes a great deal of killing. It is the working of a thoroughly organized community in which every man is born to his work, has natural instructors in his parents and class, and so knows his work by a self-acting law of Society, which possesses the regularity and precision of a law of Nature. It survived the Persians. It Egyptianized the Greeks. It was not stamped out by the Romans. Christianity gradually enfeebled, absorbed, and metamorphosed it. At last came the Mahomedan flood, and swept away whatever germs might have even then remained of a capacity for the maintenance of a well-ordered and fruitful commonwealth.
CHAPTER XVII.
THEBES—THE NECROPOLIS.
Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est.
... Hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti.
Nec ripas datur horrendas, ac rauca fluenta
Transportare prius quam sedibus ossa quierunt.—Virgil.