(i. 74) he extends the number to five, by the addi- | exempt from tribute: their persons were greeted tion of soldiers and shepherds. Strabo limits them to three-priests, soldiers, and husbandmen and as this partition is virtually correct, we shall adopt it after brief explanation. The existence of castes is a corroborative proof of the Asiatic origin of the Egyptians. The stamp, of caste was not in Egypt, as is sometimes asserted, indelible. The son usually, but not inevitably, followed his father's trade or profession. From some of the pariah classes indeed- - such as that of the swineherds-it was scarcely possible to escape. The land in Egypt upon which the institution of castes rested belonged in fee only to the king, the priests, and the soldiers. We know from Genesis (xlvii. 26) that all other proprietors of the soil had surrendered their rights to the crown, and received their lands again subject to an annual rent of of the produce. The priests we know (Genes. l. c.), the soldiers we infer (Diod. i. 74), retained their absolute ownership; and in so productive a country as Egypt the husbandman was too important a person to be deprived at once of all his political rights. He was in fact an integral although an inferior section of the war-caste. The privileged orders however were the king, the priest, the soldier: 1. The King was at first elective, and always a member of the priesthood. He afterwards became hereditary, and was taken indifferently from the sacerdotal and military orders. If however he were by birth a soldier, he was adopted on his accession by the priests. Even the Ptolemies were not allowed to reign without such previous adoption. His initiation into the sacred mysteries was represented on monuments by the tau, the emblem of life and the key of secrecy, impressed upon his lips (Plut. de Is. et Osir. p. 354, B.; Plat. Rep. ii. p. 290). with servile homage; they were the sole depositaries of 3. The Soldiers. The whole military force of Egypt amounted to 410,000 men (Herod. ii. 165–166; Diod. i. 54). It was divided into two corps, the Calasirians and the Hermotybians. The former were the more numerous, and in the most flourishing era of Egypt, the 18th and 19th dynasties, were estimated at 250,000 men. Each of these divisions furnished a thousand men annually to perform the duty of royal body guards. During the term of their The king, when not engaged in war, was occupied in jurisdiction and the service of religion. The royal life was one long ceremony. His rising and his lying down; his meals, his recreations, and the order of his employments, were rigidly prescribed to him. Some liberty in law-making indeed was allowed him, since we read of the laws of Sesostris, Amasis, and other Egyptian rulers: and, with vigorous occupants of the throne, it is probable that the soldier occasionally transgressed the priestly ordinances. As but few, however, of the Egyptian monarchs seem to have grossly abused their power, we may conclude that the hierarchy at least tempered royal despotism. In paintings the king is always re-attendance they received from the king daily rations presented as many degrees taller and more robust than of bread, beef, and wine. When summoned to the his subject warriors. A thousand fly before him, field or to garrison duty, each soldier provided himself and he holds strings of prisoners by the hair. The with the necessary arms and baggage. The prinEgyptian king wears also the emblems and some- cipal garrisons of Egypt were on its southern and times even the features of the gods; and it is fre- eastern borders, at Syene and Elephantine, at Hieraquently difficult to distinguish on the monuments compolis and Eilethyas, which towns, on opposite Sesortasen, Amunopht, &c. from Osiris. It is re- sides of the river, commanded the Nile-valley above markable that females were not excluded from a Thebes, and at Marea and Pelusium. The western throne so sacerdotal. A queen, Nitocris, occurs in frontier was, until Egypt stretched to the Cyrenaica, the sixth dynasty; another, Scemiophris, in the guarded sufficiently by the Libyan desert. In time of twelfth, and other examples are found in the sculp- peace the troops who were not in garrisons or at court tures. On the decease of a sovereign a kind of were settled in various nomes principally east of the posthumous judgment was exercised on his character Nile, and in the Delta; since it was in that quarter and government. His embalmed body was placed Egypt was most exposed to invasion from the pasin the sepulchre, and all men were permitted to bring toral Arabs or the yet more formidable nomade tribes accusations against him. Virtuous princes received of Assyria and Palestine. According to Herodotus a species of deification: condemned princes were (ii. 168), each soldier was allowed 12 arourae of debarred from sepulture. land, or about six acres free from all charge or tribute, from which allotment he defrayed the cost of his arms and equipment. To the Egyptian soldier 2. The Priests however were, in ordinary times, the real governing body of Egypt. Their lands were handicraft employment was forbidden, agricultural | observed the distinction between the dry pontifical labours were enjoined. The monuments exhibit officers with recruiting parties, soldiers engaged in gymnastic exercises, and in the battle pieces, which are extremely spirited, all the arts of offensive and defensive war practised by the Egyptians are represented. The war-caste was necessarily a very important element in a state which was frequently engaged in distant conquests, and had a wide extent of territory to defend. Yet until the reigns of Sethos, when the priests invaded its privileges, and of Psammetichus, when the king encroached upon them, we find no trace of mutiny or civil war in Egypt, a proof that the Calasirians and Hermotybians were not only well disciplined, but also, in the main, contented with their lot. VII. Civil History. The History of Egypt is properly arranged under five eras. 1. Egypt under its native rulers-the Pharaonic Era. Its commencement is unknown: it closes with the conquest of the land by Cambyses in B. C. 525. 2. The Persian Era, from B. c. 525, to the Macedonian invasion, B. C. 332. 3. The Macedonian or Hellenic Era. This period is computed either from the foundation of Alexandria, in B. C. 332, or from B. c. 323, when Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, converted the satrapy of Egypt into an hereditary kingdom. This period extends to the death of Cleopatra, in B. C. 30. 4. The Roman Era, from the surrender of Alexandria to Augustus, in B. c. 30, to the capture of that city by the Khalif Omar in a. D. 640. 5. The Mahommedan Era, from A. D. 640 to the present time. The last of these periods belongs to modern history, and does not come within the scope of this work. The first of them must be very briefly treated, partly because it involves questions which it would demand a volume to discuss, and partly because Egypt came into the field of classical history through its relations with the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. For complete information the student of the Pharaonic era must consult the larger works of Denon, Young, Champollion, Rosellini, Heeren, Wilkinson, Bunsen and Lepsius; or the very lucid abstract of this period in Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, which, indeed, contains all that the general reader can require. 1. Pharaonic Era. Authorities. The original records of Egypt were kept with no ordinary care, and were very various in kind, sculpture, symbol, writing, all contributing to their contents. Herodotus (ii. 72-82), Theophrastus (ap. Porphyr. de Abstinent. ii. 5), Cicero (de Repub. iii. 8) concur in describing the Egyptians as the most learned and accurate of mankind in whatsoever concerned their native annals. The priests, Diodorus (i. 44) assures us, had transmitted in unbroken succession written descriptions of all their kings-their physical powers and disposition, and their personal exploits. The antiquity of writing in Egypt is no longer a subject of dispute. Lepsius (Book of the Dead, Leipzig, 1842, Pref. p. 17) found on monuments as early as the 12th dynasty, the hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus; and on the 4th that of the stylus and inkstand. The Egyptians themselves also | chronicle and mythical and heroical narratives couched in poetry and song. To this mass of written documents are to be added the sculptured monuments themselves, the tombs, obelisks, and temple walls, whose paintings and inscriptions have been partially decyphered by modern scholars, and are found generally to correspond with the written lists of kings compiled, in the first instance, by the native historian Manetho. Egyptian history, however, in the modern acceptation of the word, began after the establishment of the Greek sovereignty of Egypt. The natives, with the natural pride of a once ruling but now subject race, were eager to impart to their Hellenic masters more correct notions of their history and religion than could be obtained either from the relations of Greek travellers, such as Thales and Solon, or from the narratives of Hecataeus, Democritus, and Herodotus. Of Manetho, of Sextus Julius Africanus, from whose chronicon, in five books, Eusebius derived a considerable portion of his own chronicon, of Georgius the Syncellus, of Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian mathematician, who treated largely of Egyptian chronology, accounts have been given in the Dietionary of Greek and Roman Biography, and to its columns we must refer for the bibliography of Egyptian history. Lastly, we must point out the extreme value of the Hebrew scriptures and of Josephus among the records of the Nile-valley. The remote antiquity of Egyptian annals is not essentially an objection to their credibility. The Syncellus assigns 3555 years as the duration of Manetho's thirty dynasties. These being Egyptian years, are equivalent to 3553 Julian years, and, added to 339 B. C., when the thirtieth dynasty expired, give 3892 B. c. as the commencement of the reign of Menes, the founder of the monarchy. But although Bunsen and other distinguished Egyptologers are disposed to assign an historical personality to Menes, his very name, as the name of an individual man, seems suspicious. It too nearly resembles the Menu of the Indians, the Minyas and Minos of the Greeks, the Menerfa of the Etruscans, and the Mannus of the Germans -in all which languages the name is connected with a root — Man -signifying to think and speak" (see Quarterly Review, vol. 78, p. 149) — to be accepted implicitly as a personal designation. 66 The Pharaonic era of Egyptian history may be divided into three portions-the Old, the Middle, and the New monarchy. The first extends from the foundation of the kingdom in B. C. 3892 to the invasion of the Hyksos. The second from the conquest of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos and the establishment of an independent kingdom in the Thebaid, to the expulsion of the Hyksos. The third from the re-establishment of the native monarchy by Amosis to the final conquest by Cambyses in B. C. 525. (Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 110.) (1.) The Old Monarchy. The chronology of this and the succeeding division of the Egyptian monarchy is beset with, at present, insurmountable difficulties; since, in the first place, there are no synchronisms in the annals of other countries to guide the inquirer, and in the next, we know not whether the dynasties in Manetho should be taken as a series, or whether he enumerates contemporaneous families of kings, some of whom reigned, at the same time, at Memphis, and others at Sais, who reigned 184 years, but the names and acts of both have perished. With the 14th dynasty closes the first period of the Pharaonic era. (2.) The Middle Monarchy. The second pe riod, consisting of three dynasties, is that of the Shepherd Kings. A passage of Manetho's lost work Aegyptiaca, cited by Josephus in his rejoinder to the Graeco-Egyptian grammarian Apion (Joseph. c. Apion. i. 14), places this period in comparative light before us. That a Nomadic Arab horde for several centuries occupied and made Egypt tributary; that their capital was Memphis; that in the Sethroite nome they constructed an immense earthcamp which they called Abaris; that at a certain period of their occupation two independent kingdoms were formed in Egypt, one in the Thebaid, in intimate relations with Aethiopia, another at Xois, among the marshes of the Nile; that, finally, the Egyptians regained their independence and expelled the Hyksos, who thereupon retired into Palestine, are probably authentic facts, and indeed involve in themselves no just cause for doubt. The only suspicious circumstance in Manetho's narrative is the exaggeration of record. The Hyksos indeed left behind them no architectural memorials, and the Egyptians, when they recovered Lower Egypt, would not be likely to perpetuate their own subjection, nor the priests who instructed Herodotus and Diodorus to confess that the Nile-valley had ever paid tithe or toll to an abominable race of shepherd kings. The silence of annalists and monuments is therefore at least a negative argument in support of the truth of Manetho's account: nor is it improbable that the long and inveterate hatred with which the Egyptians regarded the pastoral tribes of Arabia owed its origin to their remembrance of this period of humiliation. Xois, Thebes, &c. And even if Manetho himself intended his dynasties to follow one another in direct order, the question still remains whether his authorities did so too. Gods, spirits, demigods, and Manes, or the souls of men were, according to Manetho, the first rulers of Egypt. They began with Ptha or Hephaestus and closed with Horus. Then follow thirty dynasties of mortal kings, 300 in number, according to the lowest, and 500, according to the highest computation. The time over which they extend varies also between the limits of 3555 and 5049 years. Manetho's account of these dynasties is contained in three volumes: Herodotus, Diodorus, Eratosthenes and Manetho, amid their many disagreements, concur in this statement-that Menes of This was the first mortal king of Mizraim, the double land, i. e., Upper and Lower Egypt. Here, indeed, their coincidence ends. For Herodotus makes Menes the founder of Memphis, as well as of the monarchy: whereas Diodorus states that Memphis, the embankments which supported its area, and the diversion of the Nile stream were the works of a monarch, who lived many centuries afterwards. The second name in the 4th dynasty is Suphis, to whom Mane-numbers, but this is a defect common to all primeval tho ascribes the building of the Great Pyramid. Here we seem to touch upon historical ground, since in a recently opened room of that pyramid has been decyphered the name of Chufu or Shufu, the Cheops of Herodotus, who, however, places that monarch much lower. The erection of the Second Pyramid is attributed by Herodotus and Diodorus to Chephren; and upon the neighbouring tombs, for the pyramid itself seems to be uninscribed, has been read the name of Shafre, accompanied by a pyramidal figure. There is sufficient approximation between Shafre and Chephren to identify them with each other, although no corresponding name occurs in either Eratosthenes or Manetho. Fourth in the 4th dynasty is Mencheres, the builder of the third pyramid, the Mycerinus of Herodotus (ii. 127) and Diodorus (i. 64); and their statement is fully confirmed by the discovery of a mummy case in that pyramid, with the inscription, Menkera. Manetho, indeed, makes Nitocris, a queen of the 6th dynasty, the Nitocris of Herodotus (ii. 100), to have built the third pyramid. The 7th dynasty was apparently a period of anarchy, since it contains 70 Memphite kings, who reigned for 70 days only. They were probably interreges or vice-kings. Of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th dynasties not even the names of the kings are known. Two of these were Memphite dynasties, two Heracleopolitan, and one Diospolitan, the dynasty being in each case named apparently from the birth-place of its founder. The 12th dynasty bears in Manetho's list a very historical aspect, since its catalogue of seven Diospolitan kings is not only complete, but comprises also the name of Sesostris, or more properly Sesortasen or Sesortosis, who, it is said, "subdued all Asia in nine years, and part of Europe as far as Thrace," as well as that of Lacharis (Lamaris or Maras), who built the Labyrinth in the Arsinoite nome. Yet, until recently this list has received no confirmation from hieroglyphics. Even the conquests of Sesostris probably belong to the 18th dynasty and to Rameses III. Both Herodotus and Diodorus place Sesostris much later: and the former historian refers the erection of the Labyrinth to the period of the Dodecarchia. The 13th dynasty consisted of 60 Diospolite kings, who reigned, it is said, 453 years, and the 14th of 76 Xoite kings, The Middle Monarchy extended over a period of 953 years according to the Syncellus and Africanus: but, according to Manetho, the Hyksos were lords of Egypt only 511 years. The larger number probably includes the sum of the years of the three contemporaneous dynasties at Xois, Memphis, and Thebes. (3.) The New Monarchy. The third period, or the New Monarchy, extends from the commencement of the 18th to the end of the 30th dynasty. The New Monarchy commences with the expulsion of the Hyksos, or rather perhaps with the revolt of the Thebaid which effected it. The earlier kings of the 18th dynasty, Amosis, Misphragmuthosis, &c. were apparently engaged in successive attacks upon the intruders. But, after its final victory, Egypt again, or perhaps now for the first time a united kingdom, attained a long and striking prosperity. The names of Thutmosis (Thothmes), of Amenophis (the Greek Memnon ?), and above all, of Rameses III., are read on various monuments in Nubia and Egypt, and most conspicuously in the Thebaid temples at Luxor and Karnak. The 18th dynasty was the flourishing age of Egyptian art: its sculpture became bolder, its paintings more artistic and elaborate: the appliances and inventions of civilisation more diversified. Rameses, if indeed under his name are not embodied the acts of his dynasty, was the Alexander of the Nile-valley. Seventeen centuries after his reign Germanicus visited Thebes, and the priests read to him, on the monuments, the acts and wars, the treasures and the tributes, the subjects and the domains of this powerful king (Tac. Ann. ii. 60). This was no Eastern exaggera tion. The "Tablet of Karnak," says Kenrick (vol. ii. Herodotus and Diodorus. p. 229), whose inscription was interpreted to Ger- | 722, entered into an alliance (2 Kings, xvii. 4); manicus in A. D. 16, "was strictly an historical and while Tarkus is Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, the statistical document. Its dates are precise; and enemy of Assyria and Sennacherib (Isaiah, xxxvii though we may be unable to identify the countries 9). Herodotus indeed makes no mention of any named, the exactness with which they are enume- Ethiopian king except Sabaco (Sebichos), who, rated, with the weights and numbers of the objects according to his account, reigned for half a century, which they bring, proves that we have before us an and then voluntarily withdrew into his own Nubian authentic record, at least of the tribute enjoined dominions. (Herod. ii. 139.) The Aethiopian upon the nations." About this time the southern dynasty was the second foreign occupation of Egypt, frontier of Egypt extended beyond the Second Cata- but it differed materially from the earlier usurpation ract: to the west the power of Thothmes or Ra- of the land by the Hyksos. The 25th dynasty does meses reached over the negro tribes of the interior: not appear to have been regarded by the Egyp the east was guarded by strong fortresses: while by tians themselves as a period of particular woe or the north the Egyptian monarch went forth as a oppression. The alliance between the country above conqueror, and, proceeding along the Syrian coast, and the country below Elephantine and the Second passed into Asia Minor, and planted his standard on Cataract was apparently, at all times, very close: the frontiers of Persia, and upon the shores of the the religion and manners of the adjoining kingdoms Caspian Sea. His campaigns required the coopera- differed but little from one another: and the Aethiotion of a fleet; and Egypt became, for the first time pian sovereigns perhaps merely exchanged, during in history, a maritime power. It is probable in- their tenure of Egypt, a less civilised for a more deed that its navy was furnished by its subjects, civilised realm. On the retirement of the Ethiothe inhabitants of the coast of Western Asia. The pians, there was an apparent re-action, since Sethos, period of time assigned to this dynasty is about two a priest of Phtah, made himself master of the centuries and a half. Rameses III., there is every throne. His power seems to have been exercised reason to think, is the Sesostris or Sesortasen of tyrannically, if Herodotus (ii. 147) is correct in saying that after the death or deposition of this The names of the monarchs of the 18th dynasty" priest of Hephaestos" the Egyptians were are obtained from two important monuments, the Tablet of Abydos and the Tablet of Karnak. The 19th dynasty is probably a continuation of its predecessor, and its details are extremely confused and uncertain. The 20th was composed entirely of kings bearing the name of Rameses (Rameses IV.-XIII.), of whom Rameses IV. alone maintained the military renown of his illustrious precursors. The 21st is uninteresting. But in the 22nd we come upon the first ascertained synchronism with the annals of the Hebrews, and consequently at this point Egyptian chronology begins to blend with that of the general history of the world. There is no doubt that Abraham and his son visited Egypt; that the Nile-valley had at one era a Hebrew prime minister, who married a daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis; or that the most illustrious of the Hebrew monarchs maintained close political and commercial relations with Egypt, and allied himself with its royal family. But although the facts are certain, the dates are vague. Now, however, in the 22nd dynasty, we can not only identify the Shishak who took and plundered Jerusalem with the Sesonchis or Sesonchosis of the Greeks and the Sheshonk of the native monuments, but we can also assign to him contemporaneity with Rehoboam, and fix the date of his capture of Jerusalem to about the year B. c. 972. By the establishment of the date of Sheshonk's plundering of Jerusalem, we also come to the knowledge that the Pharaoh whose daughter was espoused to Solomon, and the sister of whose queen Tahpenes was, in the reign of David, married to Hadad the Edomite, was a monarch of the 21st dynasty (1 Kings, ix. 16; xi. 19, seq.). Osorthen or Osorcho, Sheshonk's successor, is probably the Zerah of Scripture (2 Kings, xvii. 4.; 2 Chron. xiv. 9). The Sesostrid kingdom was now on the decline, and at the close of the 24th dynasty Egypt was subjugated by the Ethiopians, and three kings of that nation, Sabaco, Sebichos or Sevekos, and Tarkus, reigned for 44 years, and composed the 25th dynasty. Sevekos is obviously the Seva, king of Egypt, with whom Hoshea, king of Israel, in B.C. 66 set free." One important change, indicating a decay of the ancient constitution, occurred in this reign. The military caste was degraded, and the crown even attempted to deprive them of their lands. It is probable that this was a revolutionary phase common to all countries at certain eras. Egypt had become in some degree a naval power. The commercial classes were rivalling in power the agricul tural and military, and the priest-king, for his own interests, took part with the former. Sethos was succeeded (B. C. 700-670), by the dodecarchy, or twelve contemporaneous kings; whether this number were the result of convention, or whether the twelve reguli were the heads of the twelve Greater Nomes, cannot be ascertained. From the commencement of this period, however, we enter upon a definite chronology. History is composed of credible facts, and the lists of the kings are conformable with the monuments. PSAMMETICHUS I., who reigned 54 years, B. C. 671-617, supplanted the dodecarchy by the aid of Greek and Phoenician auxiliaries, and in Lower Egypt at least founded a cosmopolite kingdom, such as the Ptolemies established three centuries afterwards. (Diod. i. 66; Herod. i. 171; Polyaen. Strat. vii. 3.) His Ionian and Carian or Milesian auxilia ries he settled in a district on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, between the Mediterranean and the Bubastite Nome; while the Phoenicians who had helped him to the throne were probably located near Memphis, in an allotment called the Tyrian camp. (Herod. ii. 112.) The native militia were now superseded by Hellenic regular soldiers, and a portion at least of the war-caste migrated, in dudgeon at this preference, to Aethiopia. Historians have too readily taken for granted that this was a migration of the whole body of the Hermotybians and Calasirians. It was more probably a revolt of the southern garrisons on the Nubian frontier. In the reign of Psammetichus was also instituted the caste of interpreters or dragomans between the natives and foreigners; and it strikingly marks the decline of the ancient system that Psammetichus caused his own sons to be instructed in the learning of the Greeks (Diod. i. 67). the modern town of Belbeis Psammetichus was succeeded by his son NECO or NECHAO, the Pharaoh Necho of the second book of Kings, who reigned 16 years, B. C. 617-601. Among the greatest of his works was the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea. Whether he completed it or not is doubtful; in the reign of Darius it was, however, certainly open for vessels of large burden, and was finished by the Ptolemies (Plin. vi. 33). Modern surveys have ascertained that this canal left the Nile in the neighbourhood of probably the Bubastis Agria of the Greeks and ran E. and S. to Suez. (Herod. iv. 42; Diod. i. 33.) At Neco's command also the Phoenicians undertook the circumnavigation of the African peninsula. The success of this enterprise is problematical, but, as Major Rennell, in his Essay on the Geography of Herodotus, has shown, by no means impossible. In the reign of Necho Egypt came into direct collision with the Babylonian empire, at that time rising upon the ruins of the Assyrian. Egypt seems to have been in alliance with the latter, since about the time when Cyaxares resumed the siege of Niniveh, Necho marched towards the Euphrates, apparently to relieve the beleaguered city. Judah was then in league with Babylon; and its king Josiah threw himself in the way of Necho, and was defeated by him at Megiddo. The Jewish monarch died of his wounds at Jerusalem, and the conqueror entered the holy city, probably the Cadytis of Herodotus (ii. 159, iii. 5). Necho deposed and sent captive to Egypt Jehoahaz, the son and successor of Josiah, made his younger brother Eliakim king in his stead, and imposed an annual tribute on Judaea. The Judaean monarchs were four years later avenged. From the plains of Carchemish or Circesium, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, Neco fled to Egypt, leaving all his Asiatic conquests to the victor Nebuchadnezzar. Necho was succeeded by his son PSAMMIS, who reigned 6 years, B. c. 601-595, and Psammis by his son APRIES, the Uaphris of the monuments, and the Pharaoh Hophra of the Scriptures, who reigned 25 years, B. c. 595-570. The earlier years of Apries were signalised by his victories over the Tyrians, Sidonians, Phoenicians, and Cypriots. But these acquisitions were transient, and there is reason to suppose that Lower Egypt at least was invaded by Nebuchadnezzar (Strab. p. 687; Jeremiah, xliii. 12, xlvi. 13—26; Ezekiel, xxix). Apries experienced even greater calamities on his western frontier, a quarter from which Egypt had been hitherto unassailed. The Greeks of Cyrene exterminated his army at Irasa (Ain Ersen), between the bay of Bomba and Cyrene. His defeat, and the cruelties to which it led, rendered him odious to his subjects. A fortunate soldier, Amasis or Amosis, deposed, succeeded, and finally strangled him. AMASIS reigned 44 years, B. c. 570-526. He is the first Egyptian monarch with whose personal character we have any acquaintance. His friendship with Polycrates is well known. He was ashrewd, active, and intelligent sovereign, who possessed the love of the soldiers and the people, and nearly disregarded the rules and ceremonies of the priests. His reign was eminently prosperous, and his death occurred just in time to prevent his witnessing the subjugation of Egypt by the Persians under Cambyses, which took place in the reign of his son PSAMMENITUS (B.C. 525), who sat upon the throne only -6 months. 2. Persian Era. The 27th dynasty contains 8 Persian kings, and extends over a period of 124 years, B. c. 525-401. Egypt became a satrapy, not, however, without much reluctation and various revolutions; for between the worshippers of animals and the worshippers of fire a religious antipathy subsisted which aggravated the pressure of conquest and the burden of subjection. The Persians indeed were the only masters of Egypt who assailed by violence, as well as regarded with contempt, its religious and political institutions. From this cause, no less than from the numerous Greek and Hebrew settlers in the Delta, the Macedonian conqueror, in B. C. 332, found scarcely any impediment to his occupation of Egypt. During the 27th dynasty Egypt became, for the first time, involved in European politics. A revolt, which commenced in the reign of Darius, B. c. 488, and which delayed for three years the second Persian invasion of Greece, was repressed by his son and successor Xerxes, in B. c. 486. A second revolt, in B. C. 462, was put down, in B. c. 456, by the satrap Megabyzus; but its leader Inaros, son of Psammitichus, was aided by the Athenians. The 28th dynasty contains only one name, that of AMYRTAEUS the Saite. In his reign of six years, through some unexplained weakness in Persia, Egypt regained its independence, for monuments at Karnak and Eilethya prove that the Saite monarch was king of the whole land. Amyrtaeus was magnificently interred in a sarcophagus of green breccia, which, after passing from an Egyptian tomb to a Greek basilica, from a Greek basilica to a Moslem mosque, finally rests in the British Museum. The 29th dynasty contained four kings, of whom hardly any thing is related, and the 30th dynasty three kings, NECTANEBUS I., TACHOS, and NECTANEBUS II., who are better known from their connection with Grecian history. In the reign of Nectanebus II., and in the year B. c. 350, Egypt was reconquered by Bagoas and Mentor, the generals of Darius Ochus, and the last Pharaoh of the 30 dynasties retired an exile into Aethiopia. The succession of Egyptian monarchs, embracing a period of 3553 years, is unexampled in history. Upon the annals of their successors the Ptolemies we shall not however enter, since the lives of the Macedonian kings are given in the Dictionary of Biography (art. Ptolemaeus). It will suffice in this place to make a few general remarks upon the political aspect of Egypt under its Greek and Roman masters. 3. Macedonian or Hellenic Era. Many causes rendered the accession of a Greek dynasty an easy and even a welcome transition to the Egyptian people. In the decline of the native monarchy, they had suffered much from anarchy and civil wars. For two centuries the yoke of Persia had pressed heavily upon their trade, agriculture and religion: their wealth had been drained, their children enslaved, their ceremonial and national prejudices systematically outraged by their rulers. For the advent of the Greeks a gradual preparation had been made since the reign of Psammetichus. Hellenic colonies had penetrated to the Great Oasis and the coast of the Red Sea. Greek travellers and philosophers had explored the Thebaid, and Greek immigrants had established numerous colonies in the Delta. Lower Egypt too had admitted Spartans and Athenians alternately as the allies of the Saite and Memphite sovereigns: so that when in B. C. 332 |