Sacred Texts  Egypt  Index  Previous 

---

Buy this Book on Kindle

Egyptian Myth and Legend, by Donald Mackenzie, [1907], at sacred-texts.com

p. 363

CHAPTER XXIX

The Restoration and the End

The God of the People--Egypt yearns for the Past--Rise of Saite Kings --Osiris as Great Father--Christianized Horus Legend--Scythians and Cimmerians--End of Assyrian Empire--Jeremiah and Pharaoh Necho--Surrender of Jerusalem--Early Explorers--Zedekiah and Pharaoh Hophra--Jerusalem sacked--Babylonian Captivity--Amasis and the Greeks--Coming of King Cyrus--Fall of Babylon--Persian Conquest of Egypt--Life in the Latter Days --Homely Letters--Cry of a Lost Soul.

THE civilization of ancient Egypt began with Osiris and ended with Osiris. Although the deified king had been thrust into the background for long centuries by the noble and great, he remained the god of the common people. "The dull crowd", as Plutarch called them, associated the ideas about their gods, "with changes of atmosphere according to the seasons, or with the generation of corn and sowings and ploughings, and in saying that Osiris is buried when the sown corn is hidden by the earth, and comes to life and shows himself again when it begins to sprout. . . . They love to hear these things, and believe them, drawing conviction from things immediately at hand and customary." The peasant lived and died believing in Osiris. "As Osiris lives, so shall he also live; as Osiris died not, so shall he also not die; as Osiris perished not, so shall he also not perish." 1 Egypt was made prosperous by Osiris: he gave it the corn which brought all its wealth and power. The

p. 364

greatest Pharaohs were those who, reverencing Osiris, cut new irrigating canals, and boasted like Amenemhet I:

Egypt's Bata-like peasants constituted the strongest army commanded by the Pharaohs; they won golden spoils from Nature, which were of more account than the spoils from Syrian battlefields and the tribute of subject kings. Those constant toilers, who were innately conservative in their methods and customs and beliefs, bulk largely in the background of ancient Egyptian history; they were little affected by the changes which passed over the country century after century; once a political storm died down, they settled back into their own habits of life; they were "the nails that held the world (of Egypt) together".

We have seen the Pharaohs and their nobles going after strange gods, marrying alien wives, and adopting new manners and customs, forgetting those traditions which are the inspiration of national life and the essence of true patriotism. When Egypt fell and was ground under the heel of the Assyrian it was from the steadfast, although unlettered, peasants that the strength of the restoration was derived; they remembered the days that were, and they remembered Osiris. "Those Egyptians who live in the cultivated parts of the country", wrote Herodotus, "are of all I have seen the most ingenious, being attentive to the improvement of memory beyond the rest of mankind."

The Assyrian conquest stirred Egypt to its depths. When Thebes was sacked, and Amon-ra cast down from his high place, the worshippers of Osiris were reviving

p. 365

the beliefs and customs of the Old Kingdom, for they had never gone wholeheartedly after Ra and Amon or Sutekh and Astarte. When Ashur-banipal shattered the power of the Asiatic nobles of Egypt and drove out the Ethiopians, he also rescued the Egyptian people from their oppressors and strengthened the restoration movement which had begun under the Ethiopian kings.

Ashur-banipal was unable to retain for long his hold upon the land of the Pharaohs. Persistent revolts occupied his attention at the very heart of his empire. His brother, the subject king of Babylon, had secured the co-operation of the Elamites, the Aramæans, the Chaldeans, and the Arabians, and a fierce struggle ensued, until in the end Babylon was besieged and captured and Elam was devastated. Meanwhile Cimmerians were invading Asia Minor and the Aryan Medes were pressing into Elam. When peace was at length restored Assyria, although triumphant, was weakened as a result of its terrible struggles, and the empire began to go to pieces.

Assyria's misfortunes gave Psamtek his opportunity. About two years after his rival, Tanut-amon, was driven out of Thebes, he had come to an understanding with King Gyges of Lydia, who, having driven off the first attack of Cimmerians, was able to send him Ionian and Carian mercenaries. Psamtek then ceased to pay tribute to Ashur-banipal, and was proclaimed Pharaoh of United Egypt. As he had married a daughter of Taharka, the Ethiopian, his succession to the throne was legalized according to the "unwritten law" of Egypt. The Assyrian officials and soldiers were driven across the Delta frontier.

Herodotus relates an interesting folktale regarding the rise of Psamtek. He was informed that the Egyptians

p. 366

chose twelve kings to reign over them, and these "connected themselves with intermarriages, and engaged to promote the common interest", chiefly because an oracle had declared that the one among them who offered a libation to Ptah in a brazen vessel should become the Pharaoh. One day in the labyrinth eleven of the kings made offerings in golden cups, but the priest had brought out no cup for Psamtek, who used his brazen helmet. The future Pharaoh was promptly exiled to a limited area in the Delta. He visited the oracle of the serpent goddess at Buto, and was informed that his cause would prosper when the sea produced brazen figures of men. Soon afterwards he heard that a body of Ionians and Carians, clad in brazen armour, had come oversea and were plundering on the Egyptian coast. He immediately entered into an alliance with them, promising rich rewards, vanquished his rivals in battle, and thus became sole sovereign of Egypt.

Sais was then the capital, and its presiding deity, the goddess Neith, assumed great importance; but by the mass of the people she was regarded as a form of Isis. The great city of Memphis, however, was the real centre of the social and religious life of the new Egypt which was the old. Thebes had ceased to have any political significance. No attempt was made to restore its dilapidated temples, from which many of the gods had been deported to Assyria, where they remained until the Persian age. Amon had fallen from his high estate, and his cult was presided over by a high priestess, a sister of Psamtek's queen, the "wife" of the god. With this lady was afterwards associated one of Psamtek's daughters, so that the remnant of the Amon endowments might come under the control of the royal house. Ra of Heliopolis shrank to the position of a local deity. The conservative Egyptians,

p. 367

as a whole, had never been converted to sun worship.

Osiris was restored as the national god in his Old Kingdom association with Ptah, the Great Father, the world deity, who had his origin upon the earth; his right eye was the sun and his left eye was the moon. But although the sun was "the eye of Osiris", the ancient deity was no more a sun god than Ra was an earth god. As Osiris-ra he absorbed certain attributes of the solar deity, but as Ra had similarly absorbed almost every other god, the process was not one of change so much as adjustment. 1 Ra ceased to be recognized as the Great Father of the Egyptian Pantheon. "Behold, thou (Osiris) art upon the seat of Ra." Osiris was essentially a god of vegetation and the material world; he was the soul of Ra, but his own soul was the soul of Seb, the earth god, which was hidden now in a tree, now in all animal, now in an egg: the wind was the breath and spirit of Osiris., and his eyes gave light. He was not born from the sun egg like Ra. Seb, the earth giant, in his bird form was before the egg, and Osiris absorbed Seb. Osiris became "the Great Egg", which was "the only egg", for the Ra "egg" had been appropriated from the earth worshippers. He was both Seb and the "egg"--"thou egg who becometh as one renewed". The father of Ra was Nu (water); the father of Osiris was Tanen (earth). 2

But although he fused with Ptah-Tanen and became the Great Father, Osiris was not divested of his ancient lunar attributes. He was worshipped as the Apis bull;

p. 368

his soul was in the bull, and it had come from the moon as a ray of light. Here then we have a fusion of myths of divergent origin. Osiris was still the old lunar god, son of the Great Mother, but he had become "husband of his mother" or mothers, and also his own father, because he was the moon which gave origin to the sacred bull. He was also the world giant whose soul was hidden. The Egyptian theologians of the restoration clung to all the old myths of their mingled tribal ancestors and attached them to Osiris.

So Osiris absorbed and outlived all the gods. In early Christian times the Serapeum, the earthly dwelling place of Serapis (Osiris-Apis), was the haunt of society Hadrian, writing to the consul Servian, said that the Alexandrians "have one god, Serapis, who is worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Gentiles". The half-Christianized Egyptians identified Christ with Horus, son of Osiris, and spoke of the Saviour as the young avenger in the "Legend of the Winged Disk", who swept down the Nile valley driving the devil (Set) out of Egypt. As early Gaelic converts said: "Christ is my Druid", those of the land of the Pharaohs appear to have declared similarly: "Christ is my Horus".

Horus and his mother, Isis, came into prominence with Osiris. Set, as Sutekh, was banished from Egypt, and was once again regarded as the devil. The cult of Isis ultimately spread into Europe. 1

But not only were the beliefs of the Old Kingdom revived; even its language was imitated in the literature and inscriptions of the Saite period, and officials were given the titles of their predecessors who served Zoser and Khufu. Art revived, drawing its inspiration from the remote past, and once again the tomb scenes assumed a

p. 369

rural character and all the mannerisms of those depicted in Old Kingdom times. Egypt yearned for the glories of other days, and became an imitator of itself. Everything that was old became sacred; antiquarian knowledge was regarded as the essence of wisdom. Hieroglyphic writing was gradually displaced by Demotic, and when the Greeks found that the learned priests alone were able to decipher the ancient inscriptions, they concluded that picture writing was a sacred art; hence the name "hieroglyphics", derived from hieros, sacred, and glypho, I engrave.

The excess of zeal displayed by the revivalists is illustrated in their deification of Imhotep, the learned architect of King Zoser of the Third Dynasty (see Chapter VIII). His memory had long been revered by the scribes; now he was exalted to a position not inferior to that held by Thoth in the time of Empire. As the son of Ptah, he was depicted as a young man wearing a tight-fitting cap, sitting with an open scroll upon his knees. He was reputed to cure diseases by the power of spells, and was a patron of learning, and he was a guide or priest of the dead, whom he cared for until they reached the Osirian Paradise. In Greek times he was called Imûthes, and identified with Asklepios.

Animal worship was also carried to excess. Instead of regarding as sacred the representative of a particular species, the whole species was adored. Cats and rams, cows and birds, and fishes and reptiles were worshipped wholesale and mummified. The old animal deities were given new forms; Khnûmû, for instance, was depicted as a ram-headed hawk, Bast as a cat-headed hawk, and Anubis as a sparrow with the head of a jackal.

Psamtek reigned for over fifty-four years, and Egypt prospered. At Memphis he extended the temple of

p. 370

Ptah and built the Serapeum, in which the sacred bull was worshipped. He waged a long war in Philistia and captured Ashdod, and had to beat back from his frontier hordes of Scythians and Cimmerians, peoples of Aryan speech, who had overrun Asia Minor and were pressing down through Syria like the ancient Hittites; during their reign of terror King Gyges of Lydia was defeated and slain.

The Greeks were encouraged to settle in Egypt, and their folklays became current in the Delta region. Herodotus related a version of the tale of Troy which was told to him by the priests. It was to the effect that Paris fled to Egypt when Menelaus began military operations to recover Helen, and that he was refused the hospitality of the Pharaoh. In the Odyssey Menelaus says to Telemachus:

Od., iv, 473.

When Psamtek's son, Necho, came to the throne the Assyrian empire was going to pieces. Nahum was warning Nineveh:

Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . I will shew the nations thy nakedness and the kingdoms thy shame. . . . The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies; the fire shall devour thy bars. . . . Thy shepherds slumber, O King of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee (Nahum, iii).

After Ashur-banipal had devastated Elam it was occupied

p. 371

by the Aryan Medes. About 607 B.C. Cyaxares, the Median king, who had allied himself with the revolting Babylonians, besieged Nineveh, which was captured and ruthlessly plundered. The last Assyrian king, Sin-shar-ishkun, the second son of Ashur-banipal, is identified with the Sardanapalus of legend who set fire to his palace and perished in its flames so that he might not fall into the hands of his enemies. Tradition attached to his memory the achievements of his father.

Pharaoh Necho took advantage of Assyria's downfall by seizing Palestine. King Josiah of Judah went against him at Megiddo and was defeated and slain. "And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem" (2 Kings, xxiii, 30). Jehoahaz was selected as Josiah's successor, but Necho deposed him and made him a prisoner, and, having fixed Judah's tribute at "an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold", he "Made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, king . . . and turned his name to Jehoiakim" (2 Kings, xxiii, 34). But although Necho had been strong enough to capture Kadesh, his triumph was shortlived. Less than four years later Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, who claimed Syria, routed Necho's army at Carchemish, and the Egyptians were forced to hasten back to their own land. "This is the day of the Lord of hosts, a day of vengeance", cried Jeremiah. . . . "Come up ye horses; and rage ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth: the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians (mercenaries) that handle and bend the bow. . . . The sword shall devour. . . . Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape. . . . The nations have heard of thy shame", cried the Hebrew prophet to the escaping Egyptians (Jeremiah, xlvi). "And the King of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the King

p. 372

of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the River Euphrates all that pertained to the King of Egypt (2 Kings, xxiv, 7).

Necho had come to an understanding with Nebuchadrezzar, and interfered no more in Palestine. A few years later Jehoiakim rebelled against the King of Babylon, expecting that Necho would support him, despite the warnings of Jeremiah, and Jerusalem was besieged and forced to surrender. Jehoiakim had died in the interval, and his son, Jehoiachin, and a large number of "the mighty of the land" were deported to Babylon (2 Kings, xxiv). Mattaniah, son of Josiah, was selected to rule over Jerusalem, his name being changed to Zedekiah.

Necho, according to Herodotus, had undertaken the construction of a canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, hut desisted after a time on account of a warning received from an oracle. He then devoted himself to building a large fleet. His father was reputed to have endeavoured to discover the source of the Nile, and it was probably with desire to have the problem solved that Necho sent an expedition of Phœnicians to circumnavigate Africa. When the vessels, which started from the Red Sea, returned three years later by the Straits of Morocco, the belief was confirmed that the world was surrounded by the "Great Circle"--the ocean.

Apries, the second king after Necho, is the Pharaoh Hophra of the Bible. He had dreams of conquest in Syria, and formed an alliance which included unfortunate Judah, so that "Zedekiah rebelled against the King of Babylon" (Jeremiah, lii, 3). Nebuchadrezzar took swift and terrible vengeance against Josiah's unstable son. Jerusalem was captured after a two years' siege and laid in ruins (about 586 B.C.). Zedekiah fled, but was captured, "And the King of Babylon slew the sons of

p. 373

Zedekiah before his eyes. . . . Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the King of Babylon bound him in chains and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death" (Jeremiah, lii, 10, 11). The majority of the Jews were deported; a number fled with Jeremiah to Egypt. So ended the kingdom of Judah.

Jeremiah proclaimed the doom of Judah's tempter, crying: "Thus saith the Lord; Behold I will give Pharaoh-hophra, King of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah, King of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life" (Jeremiah, xliv, 30).

Apries fell about 568 B.C. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians revolted against him, apparently because of his partiality to the Greeks; his army of Ionian and Carian mercenaries was defeated by a native force under Amasis (Ahmes II), whose mother was a daughter of Psamtek II. A mutilated inscription at Babylon is believed to indicate that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt about this time, but it is not confirmed by any surviving Nilotic record. Apries was kept a prisoner by the new king, but the Egyptians demanded his death, and he was strangled.

Amasis reigned for over forty years. He was well known to the Greeks. Herodotus says that he regulated his time in this manner: from dawn until the city square

p. 374

was crowded he gave audience to whoever required it; the rest of the day he spent making merry with friends of not very high morals. Some of his nobles remonstrated with him because of his "excessive and unbecoming levities", and said he should conduct himself so as to increase the dignity of his name and the veneration of his subjects. Amasis answered: "Those who have a bow bend it only when they require to; it is relaxed when not in use. And if it were not, it would break and be of no service in time of need. It is just the same with a man; if he continually engaged in serious pursuits, and allowed no time for diversion, he would suffer gradual loss of mental and physical vigour."

Amasis "was very partial to the Greeks, and favoured them at every opportunity", Herodotus says. He encouraged them to settle at Naucratis, 1 where the temple called Hellenium was erected and Greek deities were worshipped. Amasis erected a magnificent portico to Neith at Sais, had placed in front of Ptah's temple at Memphis a colossal recumbent figure 75 feet long, and two erect figures 20 feet high, and caused to be built in the same city a magnificent new temple to Isis. To the Græco-Libyan city of Cyrene, with which he cultivated friendly relations, he gifted "a golden statue of Minerva". He married a princess of the Cyrenians. Herodotus relates that during the wedding celebrations Amasis "found himself afflicted with an imbecility which he experienced under no other circumstances"; probably he had been drinking heavily, as he was too prone to do. His cure was attributed to Venus, who was honoured with a statue for reward.

Amasis was not over popular with the Egyptians. Not only did he favour the Greeks, but promulgated a

RESTORATION PERIOD DEITIES

p. 375

MUMMY CASES

law to compel every citizen to make known once a year the source of his earnings. It is not surprising to find that he had to send Greek soldiers to Memphis to overawe the offended natives, who began to whisper treasonable sayings one to another.

His foreign policy was characterized by instability. Although he cultivated friendly relations for the purpose of mutual protection, he gave no assistance in opposing the Persian advance westward.

About the middle of the reign of Amasis a new power arose in the East which was destined to shatter the crumbling edifices of old-world civilization and usher in a new age. "Cyrus, the Achæmenian, King of Kings", who was really a Persian, overthrew King Astyages (B.C. 550) of the Medes and founded the great Aryan Medo-Persian empire and pressed westward to Asia Minor. Amasis formed alliances with the kings of Babylon, Sparta, and Lydia, and occupied Cyprus, which he evacuated when the Persians overthrew the Lydian power. Egypt had become "a shadow" indeed. Cyrus next turned his attention to Babylonia, besieging and capturing city after city. The regent, Belshazzar, ruled as king in Babylon, which, in 539 B.C., was completely invested. On the last night of his life, deeming himself secure, "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand" (Daniel, v, i).

p. 376

So Babylon fell. Cyrus, who was proclaimed its king, allowed the Jews to return home, and the first lot saw the hills of Judah in 538 B.C., nearly half a century after Zedekiah was put to shame.

Cambyses, a man of ungovernable temper and subject to epileptic fits, succeeded Cyrus in 530 B.C. Nine months after the death of Amasis, the ineffectual intriguer (525 B.C.), he moved westward with a strong army and conquered Egypt. Psamtek III, after the defeat of his army of mercenaries at Pelusium, on the east of the Delta, retreated to Memphis. Soon afterwards a Persian herald sailed up the Nile to offer terms, but the Egyptians slew him and his attendants and destroyed the boat. Cambyses took speedy revenge. He invested Memphis, which ere long surrendered. According to Herodotus, he committed gross barbarities. Pharaoh's daughter and the daughters of noblemen were compelled to fetch water like slaves, nude and disgraced before the people, and Pharaoh's son and two thousand Egyptian youths, with ropes round their necks, were marched in procession to be cut to pieces as the herald of Cambyses had been, and even Pharaoh was executed. On his return from Nubia, where he conducted a fruitless campaign, Cambyses is said to have slain a newly found Apis bull, perhaps because Amasis had "loved Apis more than any other

p. 377

king". At Sais the vengeful Persian, according to Egyptian tradition, had the mummy of Amasis torn to pieces and burned.

With the conquest by Persia the history of ancient Egypt may be brought to an end. Before the coming of Alexander the Great, in B.C. 332, the shortlived and weak Dynasties Twenty-eight to Thirty flickered like the last flames of smouldering embers. Then followed the Ptolemaic age, which continued until 30 B.C., when, with the death of the famous Cleopatra, Egypt became "the granary of Rome".

Under the Ptolemies there was another restoration. It was modelled on the civilization of the latter half of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and Amenhotep, son of Hapi, the architect and magician who had been honoured by Queen Tiy's royal husband, was elevated to the rank of a god. A large proportion of the foreign population embraced Egyptian religion, and the dead were given gorgeous mummy cases with finely carved or painted portraits.

Vivid glimpses of life in Egypt from the second to the fourth century A.D.,--are afforded by the papyri discovered at Oxyrhynchus, chiefly by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt. Wealthy and populous Alexandria had its brilliant and luxury-loving social groups. Invitations to dinner were sent out in much the same form as at the present day. The following is dated second century A.D.:

Cbæremon requests your company at dinner at the table of the lord of Serapis in the Serapeum to-morrow, the 15th, at 9 o'clock.

The worship of Apis was fashionable. A lady wrote to a friend about the beginning of the fourth century:

Greeting, my dear Serenia, from Petosiris. Be sure, dear, to

p. 378

come up on the 20th for the birthday festival of the god, and let me know whether you are coming by boat or by donkey in order that we may send for you accordingly. Take care not to forget. I pray for your continued health.

There were spoiled and petted boys even in the third century. One wrote to his indulgent father:

Theon to father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city. If you won't take me with you to Alexandria I won't write you a letter, or speak to you, or say goodbye to you, and if you go to Alexandria I won't take your hand or ever greet you again. This is what will happen if you won't take me. Mother said to Archelaus: "It quite upsets me to be left behind". It was good of you to send me presents. . . . Send me a lyre I implore you. If you don't, I won't eat, I won't drink--there now!

Alexandria was always a hotbed of sedition. A youthful citizen in good circumstances wrote to his brother:

I learned from some fishermen that Secundus's house has been searched and my house has been searched. I shall therefore be obliged if you will write me an answer on this matter so that I may myself present a petition to the Prefect. . . . Let me hear about our bald friend, how his hair is growing again on the top; be sure and do.

Marriage engagements were dissolved when prospective sons-in-law were found to be concerned in lawless actions; prisoners were bailed out; improvident people begged for loans from friends to take valuables and clothing out of pawn; country folk complained that merchants sent large cheeses when they ordered small ones. Young men were expected to write home regularly. The following is a father's letter:--

I have been much surprised, my son, at not receiving hitherto a letter from you to tell me how you are. Nevertheless, sir,

p. 379

answer me with all speed, for I am quite distressed at having heard nothing from you.

So the social life of an interesting age is made articulate for us, and we find that human nature has not changed much through the centuries. 1

In the Ptolemaic age a papyrus was made eloquent with the lamentation of a girl wife in her tomb. At fourteen she was married to the high priest of Ptah, and after giving birth to three daughters in succession she prayed for a son, and a son was born. Four brief years went past and then she died. Her husband heard her crying from the tomb, entreating him to eat and drink and be merry, because the land of the dead was a land of slumber and blackness and great weariness . . . . . "The dead are without power to move . . . sire and mother they know not, nor do they long for their children, husbands, or wives. . . . Ah, woe is me! would I could drink of stream water, would I could feel the cool north wind on the river bank, so that my mind might have sweetness and its sorrow an end."

It is as if the soul of ancient Egypt, disillusioned in the grave, were crying to us in the darkness "down the corridors of time".

Footnotes

363:1 Erman, Handbuch.

367:1 The various gods became manifestations of Osiris. In the Osirian hymns, which were added to from time to time, Osiris is addressed: "Thou art Tum, the forerunner of Ra . . . the soul of Ra . . . the pupil of the eye that beholdest Tum . . . lord of fear, who causeth himself to come into being" (The Burden of Isis, Dennis).

367:2 The Burden of Isis; the egg, pp. 39, 45, 55; the sun, pp. 23, 24, 41, 49, 53; Tatenen (Tanen), p. 49; Seb, pp. 32, 47.

368:1 An image of Isis was found on the site of a Roman camp in Yorkshire.

374:1 "Mighty in ships."

379:1 The translations are from Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Egyptian Fund) Parts 2 and 3.