About 1800 B. C. the Hyksos or Shepherd-kings, said to be of Arabian race, conquered Lower Egypt, and then subdued the kingdom of Thebes, ruling the whole land down to 1580 B. C. Probably to this period the story of Joseph in Egypt belongs. The shepherd-kings [347] were expelled with the aid of the Ethiopians from the south, and then came the great period of Egyptian history. During this time, Egypt was a great empire with Thebes for its capital. Under Thutmose III., Amenhotep III. and IV., and Seti I., Egypt rose to great heights of development and art.

GREAT EPOCH OF
RAMESES II.

The greatest monarch of this, or perhaps of any, age of Egypt’s history was Rameses the Great (called by the Greeks, Sesostris). To him have been attributed many of the monuments and pictures which represent triumphal processions and captives. Rameses the Great reigned for nearly seventy years in the fourteenth century before Christ. Among his many monuments two are chiefly remarkable, the Memnonium or palace-temple at Thebes, and the great rock-cut temple of Abu-Simbel in Nubia. These architectural works possess an interest more historical than that of the pyramids. He is said to have subdued Ethiopia, carried his arms beyond the Euphrates eastward, and among the Thracians in southeast Europe. The monumental sculptures and paintings tell us of war-galleys of Egypt in the Indian seas, and of Ethiopian tribute paid in ebony and ivory and gold, in apes and birds of prey, and even in giraffes from inner Africa. Other sculptures display the Egyptians fighting with success against Asiatic foes. To this monarch was due a vast system of irrigation by canals for conveying the waters of the Nile to every part of the country.

The next sovereign of note was Sheshanq (Shi´shak), who, in the latter part of the tenth century before Christ, took and plundered Jerusalem. The empire continued to decline, and was entirely reduced by Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, and became for a time tributary to the Assyrian monarchs. In the early part of the reign of the king Psametik I. (653-610 B. C.)

IMPORTANT REIGN OF PSAMETIK
FOLLOWS AN AGE OF DECAY

We find Egypt in connection, for the first time in its history, with foreign countries, otherwise than as conquering or conquered. Psametik I. (653-610 B. C.) had in his pay a body of Greek mercenaries, and sought to introduce the Greek language among his subjects. In jealousy at this, the great military caste of Egypt emigrated into Ethiopia, and left the king dependent on his foreign troops, with whom he successfully warred in Syria and Phœnicia, and likewise succeeded in making Egypt independent of Assyria.

Neku, son of Psametik (610-595 B. C.), was an enterprising prince, who built fleets on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and strove to join the Nile, by a canal, with the Red Sea. Africa was circumnavigated by Phœnicians in his service, who sailed from the Arabian Gulf, and passed round by the Straits of Gibraltar to the mouths of the Nile. He was the king who defeated Josiah, king of Judah, sustaining afterward defeat from Nebuchadnezzar II., king of Babylon, at Carchemish.

In 590 B. C., came Apries (the Pharaoh-Hophra of Scripture), who conquered Sidon, and was an ally of Zedekiah, king of Judah, against Nebuchadnezzar. After being repulsed with severe loss in an attack on the Greek colony of Cyrene, west of Egypt, Apries was dethroned by Aahmes II., who reigned from 570 to 526 B. C. His prosperous rule was marked by a closer intercourse with the Greeks.

EGYPT IS CONQUERED
BY PERSIA

Psametik III., son of Aahmes, inherited a quarrel of his father with Cambyses, king of Persia, who invaded and conquered Egypt in 525 B. C. For nearly two centuries afterwards the history of Egypt is marked, disastrously, by constant struggles between the people and their Persian conquerors, and, in a more favorable and interesting way, by the growing intercourse between the land of the Nile and the Greeks. Greek historians and philosophers—Herodotus and Anaxagoras and Plato—visited the country, and took back stores of information on its wonders, its culture, and its faith.