Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from a photograph by Dévéria.
“He is very strong, Binrî Mînephtah,” sang the court poets, “very wise are his projects—his words have as beneficial effect as those of Thot—everything which he does is completed to the end.—When he is like a guide at the head of his armies—his voice penetrates the fortress walls.—Very friendly to those who bow their backs—before Mîamun—his valiant soldiers spare him who humbles himself—before his courage and before his strength;—they fall upon the Libyans—they consume the Syrian;—the Shardana whom thou hast brought back by thy sword—make prisoners of their own tribes.—Very happy thy return to Thebes—victorious! Thy chariot is drawn by hand—the conquered chiefs march backwards before thee—whilst thou leadest them to thy venerable father—Amon, husband of his mother.” And the poets amuse themselves with summoning Mâraîû to appear in Egypt, pursued as he was by his own people and obliged to hide himself from them. “He is nothing any longer but a beaten man, and has become a proverb among the Labû, and his chiefs repeat to themselves: ‘Nothing of the kind has occurred since the time of Râ.’ The old men say each one to his children: ‘Misfortune to the Labû! it is all over with them! No one can any longer pass peacefully across the country; but the power of going out of our land has been taken from us in a single day, and the Tihonu have been withered up in a single year; Sûtkhû has ceased to be their chief, and he devastates their “duars;” there is nothing left but to conceal one’s self, and one feels nowhere secure except in a fortress.’” The news of the victory was carried throughout Asia, and served to discourage the tendencies to revolt which were beginning to make themselves manifest there. “The chiefs gave there their salutations of peace, and none among the nomads raised his head after the crushing defeat of the Libyans; Khâti is at peace, Canaan is a prisoner as far as the disaffected are concerned, the inhabitant of Ascalon is led away, Gezer is carried into captivity, Ianuâmîm is brought to nothing, the Israîlû are destroyed and have no longer seed, Kharu is like a widow of the land of Egypt.” *
* This passage is taken from a stele discovered by Petrie in
1896, on the site of the Amenophium at Thebes. The mention
of the Israîlû immediately calls to mind the place-names
Yushaph-îlu, Yakob-îlu, on lists of Thûtmosis III. which
have been compared with the names Jacob and Joseph.
Mînephtah ought to have followed up his opportunity to the end, but he had no such intention, and his inaction gave Mâraîû time to breathe. Perhaps the effort which he had made had exhausted his resources, perhaps old age prevented him from prosecuting his success; he was content, in any case, to station bodies of pickets on the frontier, and to fortify a few new positions to the east of the Delta. The Libyan kingdom was now in the same position as that in which the Hittite had been after the campaign of Seti I.: its power had been checked for the moment, but it remained intact on the Egyptian frontier, awaiting its opportunity.
Mînephtah lived for some time after this memorable year* and the number of monuments which belong to this period show that he reigned in peace. We can see that he carried out works in the same places as his father before him; at Tanis as well as Thebes, in Nubia as well as in the Delta. He worked the sandstone quarries for his building materials, and continued the custom of celebrating the feasts of the inundation at Silsileh. One at least of the stelae which he set up on the occasion of these feasts is really a chapel, with its architraves and columns, and still, excites the admiration of the traveller on account both of its form and of its picturesque appearance.
* The last known year of his reign is the year VIII. The
lists of Manetho assign to him a reign of from twenty to
forty years; Brugsch makes it out to have been thirty-four
years, from 1300 to 1266 B.C., which is evidently too much,
but we may attribute to him without risk of serious error a
reign of about twenty years.
The last years of his life were troubled by the intrigues of princes who aspired to the throne, and by the ambition of the ministers to whom he was obliged to delegate his authority.