heresy, obliterated in numerous cases the image of Khuenaten, re-cut the name of Ammon on the monuments from which it had been erased, and built of materials obtained by his demolitions a new gateway to the temple of Ammon at Karnak, to manifest his deep devotion to the great Theban deity. At the same time he gave their due honours to the other gods. He represents himself as worshipping Horus, Thoth, Khem, Set, Khonsu, and as specially cherished by Athor and Anuka. According to an inscription which he set up at Thebes, he 'renewed the dwellings of the gods, from the shallows of the marsh land of Athu 5 to the confines of Nubia. He had all their images sculptured as they had been before. He set them up, each in his temple, and had a hundred images made-all of like form-for each of them, out of all manner of costly stones. He visited the cities of the gods, which lay as heaps of rubbish in the land, and had them restored just as they had stood from the beginning of all things.' He re-established for each a 'daily festival of sacrifice,' provided the temples with a due supply of silver and golden vessels,' of 'holy persons and singers,' presented to them arable land and cattle,' and gave them day by day a sufficiency of all kinds of provisions.' Gods and men were equally delighted with the new régime. 'The heaven was in festive disposition; the land was filled with ecstasy; and, as for the divinities of Egypt, their souls were full of pleasant feelings. Then the inhabitants of the land, in high delight, raised toward heaven the song of praise; great and small lifted up

1 Birch, Ancient Egypt, pp.112-13. | vol. i. pp. 464-8, 1st ed.; Records Denkmäler, pt. iii. pls. 119 e, of the Past, vol. x. pp. 29 et seqq. On the meaning of this phrase, see above, p. 144.

g, h, 122 a, c.

3 Ibid. pls. 120 c, 122 b.

See Brugsch, History of Egypt,

CH. XX.]

HOREMHEB'S WAR WITH ETHIOPIA.

281

their voices; and the whole land was moved with joy !' 1

Besides accomplishing this great religious restoration, which included the rebuilding or repair of almost all the temples throughout Egypt and Nubia, Horemheb engaged in at least one important war with his neighbours upon the South. In this quarter, Ethiopia,

though often defeated, and sometimes despoiled of territory, as by Usurtasen III.,2 was still unsubdued; and, to prevent or punish predatory attacks, expeditions were from time to time necessary, which abated the pride of the 'miserable Kashi,' and secured Egypt a period of repose. Horembeb conducted one of these expeditions, invaded the land of Kush, bore

1 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 467, 1st ed.

2 See above, p. 155.

6

down all opposition, and came back from his success-. ful campaign laden with booty and accompanied by numerous prisoners. In the rock temple of Silsilis he represents himself as he was borne in triumph by his attendants on his return.1 Seated in a palanquin, ornamented on its side by the figure of a lion, and upheld by twelve bearers, he presented himself to his admiring subjects, amid the loud cries of those who shouted: Behold the lion, who has fallen upon the land of Kush! See, the divine benefactor returns home after subduing the princes of all countries. His bow is in his hand, as though he were Mentu, the lord of Thebes. The powerful and glorious king leads captive the princes of the miserable land of Kush. He returns thence with the booty which he has taken by force, as his father Ammon ordered him.'" Cawasses with sticks cleared the road by which the procession was to pass; behind the king went his chosen warriors, leading with them the captured generals as prisoners; then followed the rest of the army, marshalled in various corps, and marching in time to the sound of the trumpet's blare. A numerous company of Egyptian officers, priests, and other officials came out to receive their monarch, and did homage to him. To complete his triumph, the unhappy prisoners were made to chant the glories of their conqueror. Incline thy face, O king of Egypt,' they said; incline thy face, O sun of the barbarians! Thy name is great in the land of Kush, where thy war-cry resounded through the dwellings of men. Great is thy power, thou beneficent ruler—it

1 Denkmäler, pt. iii. pl. 121.

2 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 471, 1st ed.; Birch, Ancient

•

Egypt, p. 112; Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne, vol. i. p. 394.

CH. XX.] CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 283

puts to shame the peoples. The Pharaoh—life, salvation, health to him!—is truly a shining sun.' 1

1

It is gathered, somewhat doubtfully, from one inscription, that the reign of Horemheb lasted at least twenty-one years.2 Manetho assigned him a still longer space, if we may believe the epitomists, who, however, vary in their accounts between twenty-eight years and thirty-seven. His wife, Notem-mut or Mut-notem, seems to have borne him no children;5 and thus he was unable to leave his throne to any issue of his loins. It is suspected that he reigned in right of his wife rather than by any royal rank of his own, and that she still retained the sovereignty for a while after his decease; but the monuments are obscure upon the point, and the circumstances under which the glorious eighteenth dynasty came to an end, and the nineteenth succeeded it, are unknown to us.7

As the art and civilisation of these two dynasties are similar and indeed almost identical, it is proposed to defer the consideration of these subjects to the close of the next chapter.

1 Brugsch, p. 289; Birch, 1.s.c. 2 See the inscription in Brugsch's History, vol. i. p. 473, 1st ed.

3 The number is twenty-eight in the Armenian Eusebius, thirty-six in the Eusebius of Syncellus, and thirty-eight in the same writer's Africanus.

4 When an Egyptian personal name begins with the name of a god, it is uncertain whether the god's name was pronounced first or last. Hence Egyptologers vary between Neferka-Sokari and Sokarineferka, Amon-rud and Rud-amon, Mut-notem and Notem-mut, and the

CHAPTER XXI.

THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY (ABOUT B.C. 1400-1280).

Accession of Rameses I. His Syrian War. Accession of Seti I. His Wars with the Shasu, Karu, and Khita. Peace made with the Khita. Timber cut in Lebanon. Recovery of Mesopotamia. Wars with the Libyans and Ethiopians. Seti's great Works. His Table of Kings. His Personal Appearance. His Association of his Son, Rameses.— Reign of Rameses Meriamon. Over-estimate formed of him. His Wars-with the Negroes and Ethiopians-with the Hittites-with Naharain. His Treaty of Peace with the Hittites-Importance of it. He marries a Hittite Princess. His later African Wars. Large number of his Captives-Plan pursued in locating them their Employment. Great Works of Rameses-useful and ornamental. His Personal Appearance, Domestic Relations, and Character.-Accession of his Son, Menephthah—his troubled Reign. Insignificance of his Monuments. Pacific Character of his Foreign Policy. Sudden Invasion of Egypt by the Libyans and their Allies. Proposed Identification of these Allies with European Nations. Repulse of the Libyan Attack. Relations of Menephthah with the Israelites under Moses. Troubles of his later years. Struggle between his Son, Seti II., and Amon-mes, or Amon-meses. Brief Reigns of these Monarchs.-Reign of Siphthah. Period of Anarchy. Civilisation of Egypt under the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties—Architecture and its Kindred Arts-Religion-Manners and Customs-Literature. Drawbacks on the general Prosperity.

We now approach the grandest period of Egyptian history, the rule of the Nineteenth Dynasty, and the reign of the great Rameses.'-P. SMITH'S Ancient History, vol. i. p. 119.

THE founder of the nineteenth dynasty was a certain Ramses, •, or Ramessu,, the first prince of that celebrated name-a name which afterwards became so glorious as to eclipse almost every other Egyptian royal title. His birth and parentage are in