44 MEANING OF "ASMACH." BOOK II. translated into our language, means "the men who stand on the left hand of the king.": These Deserters 66 sinia. They were called 'Aopáx, in allusion to their original post on the 'left," not of the king, but of the Egyptian army, the cause of their desertion (see following note). This word may be traced in the shemal, "left," of the Arabic; and Esar, a city mentioned by Pliny, 17 days from Meroë, where the Egyptian deserters lived 300 years, is remarkable from having the same signification in Arabic, yesár being also "the left." Some have derived the name of Axum in Abyssinia from 'Aopáx. According to Strabo (xvii. p. 541) they were called Sembrites, or Sebritæ, meaning strangers," which may either be compounded of the Egyptian shemmo, "stranger," and beri (or mberi), 66 new;" or be taken from the name of the country they inhabited, Saba; for "Sembrites" is the same 66 as Sebrites," mb being often pronounced simply b. It is remarkable that Strabo places the country they inhabited, called Tenesis, inland from the port of Saba (xvii. p. 530). They lived in an island above that of Meroë, and in his time they were subject to one of the many queens who at various periods ruled Ethiopia: for there was a queen Candace in the time of Petronius; and this title, rather than name, passed, according to Pliny (vi. 29), from one queen to another for many years. The monuments of Gebel Berkel, and other places, also show that queens frequently held the sceptre in Ethiopia; but the queen of Sheba in Solomon's time, claimed by the Abyssinians, was evidently not from that country, for Sheba was probably in the southern part of Arabia, and the Arabians, like the Ethiopians, were frequently governed by queens. (See note to Book iii. ch. 107). The name Saba may point out a connexion with the country where the lion-god was worshipped (saba meaning lion "); and Josephus (Antiq. ii. 5) says that Saba was a name of Meroë. The withdrawal of the Egyptian troops to Ethiopia is readily accounted for by the intercourse that had so long subsisted between the two countries, the royal family of Ethiopia being often related by marriage to that of Egypt, which accounts for some princes of Cush having the title " royal son" in the Theban sculptures (though these are mostly Egyptian viceroys, and sons of Pharaohs); and the fact of the royal succession having been maintained in the female line explains the reason of so many queens having ruled in Ethiopia. This too gave the Ethiopians a claim on the throne of Egypt when the direct line failed, and accounts for the Sabacos and others occasionally obtaining the crown of Egypt by right and not by conquest.-G. W.J 8 Diodorus says that the reason of the Egyptian troops deserting from Psammetichus was his having placed them in the left wing, while the right was given to the strangers in his army, which is not only more probable than the reason assigned by Herodotus, but is strongly confirmed by the discovery of an inscription at Aboosimbel in Nubia, written apparently by the Greeks who accompanied Psammetichus when in pursuit of the deserters. These Greeks were the Ionians and Carians taken into his pay, in order, as Herodotus was told (ch. 152), to aid in dethroning his colleagues, though in reality from the advantage of employing the Greeks against the increasing power of his Asiatic neighbours (see note on ch. 152). The first Greeks known to the Egyptians being Ionians led to the name Ionian being afterwards used by them for all Greeks, as we find in the Rosetta stone, and other documents. The Asiatics, for a similar reason, called the Greeks "Ionians," 'the race of Javan." Ionia in the Nakhshi-Rustam Inscription is 5 Yavaná," or Yuná, and the ancient Greeks are still known in Arabic as the "Yunáni," or "Iunáni." The inscription states that Psammetichus himself went as far as Elephantine, the Greeks being sent forward with CHAP. 30. HISTORY OF THE DESERTERS. 45 are Egyptians of the warrior cast, who, to the number of two hundred and forty thousand, went over to the Ethiopians in the reign of king Psammetichus. The cause of their desertion was the following:- Three garrisons were maintained in Egypt at that time,* one some of his adherents into Ethiopia; and the point where they had a parley with the deserters was apparently, from the inscription, near Kerkis, some distance above Aboosimbel, where on their return they left this record of their journey. It is also curious from its style; and from the early indication of the long vowels, BASIXEOSEN ONTOSESENEDANTINANVAMATIXO TAVTAESPAYANTOIS VNV AMATIXOITOI H and 2 (the latter apparently an O with a dot in the centre), which—as well as other arguments-proves that they came gradually into use, and long before the time of Simonides, who was not born till 556 B.C. The reign of Psammetichus dates in the middle of the 7th century B.C. The inscription, of which the following is a transcript, EOKA ΕΠΛΕΟΝ ΟΛΟΝ ΔΕΚΕΡΚΙΟ ΚΑΤΥ ΓΕΡΘΕΙΣ ΠΟΤΑΜΟ ANIBANOMOSOSO EXETOTASIMTOAIN VITIOSAEAMASIS EгPAREA AMEAPXONAMO IBIXOKAITENEQOSOVAAMO is thus translated by Colonel Leake :"King Psamatichus having come to Elephantine, those who were with Psamatichus, the son of Theocles, wrote this. They sailed, and came to above Kerkis, to where the river rises (?) the Egyptian Amasis. The writer is Damearchon the son of Amoebichus, and Pelephus (?) the son of Udamus "(?). (This Ph looks rather like the old K or Q.) In the same place are several other inscriptions, some of the same style and time, and others written by Phoenicians in their language, the date of which is unknown. If this was the 3rd, instead of the 1st Psammetichus, "the Egyptian Amasis" may have been the general, afterwards king of Egypt; for Herodotus, who only mentions one Psammetichus, may have been wrong in supposing the desertion of the troops took place under the son of Neco. This would bring the date of the inscription within 600 B.C. (See note on ch. 161, and hist. notice App. CH. viii. § 34.) There is a coin of Thrace of date about 550 B.C. which has the 2 (in Millingen), though many much later have not the long vowels. 8 Coins and vases are no authorities against their use, as the archaic style was imitated to a late time. Some inscriptions, as that of Potidea in the British Museum, as late as 432, have no H nor Q. The is XE, and the is ; and it has been supposed that there was no 2 in public documents till the archonship of Euclid, B.C. 403. But the long vowels were used earlier by the Greeks of Asia Minor. The 2 and & were changed to w and C in the age of the later Ptolemies, and were re-introduced in the reign of Adrian.-[G. W.] It was always the custom of the Egyptians to have a garrison stationed, as Herodotus states, on the frontier, at Elephantine, at Daphnæ of Pelusium, and at Marea; but in the time of the victorious kings of the 18th dynasty others were stationed at Semneh, above the second cataract, and also farther south in Upper Ethiopia, as well as in various parts of Asia where they had extended their conquests, which last were only finally taken from them in the time of Neco II., the son and successor of this Psammetichus.[G. W.] 46 CIVILISATION OF THE ETHIOPIANS. BOOK II. in the city of Elephantiné against the Ethiopians, another in the Pelusiac Daphnæ, against the Syrians and Arabians, and a third, against the Libyans, in Marea. (The very same posts are to this day occupied by the Persians, whose forces, are in garrison both in Daphne and in Elephantiné.) Now it happened, that on one occasion the garrisons were not relieved during the space of three years; the soldiers, therefore, at the end of that time, consulted together, and having determined by common consent to revolt, marched away towards Ethiopia. Psammetichus, informed of the movement, set out in pursuit, and coming up with them, besought them with many words not to desert the gods of their country, nor abandon their wives and children. “ Nay, but," said one of the deserters with an unseemly gesture, "wherever we go, we are sure enough of finding wives and children." Arrived in Ethiopia, they placed themselves at the disposal of the king. In return, he made them a present of a tract of land which belonged to certain Ethiopians with whom he was at feud, bidding them expel the inhabitants and take possession of their territory. From the time that this settlement was formed, their acquaintance with Egyptian manners has tended to civilise the Ethiopians." 5 Daphnæ, Daphné, or Daphnes was 16 Roman miles from Pelusium, according to the Itinerary of Antoninus. It was the Tahpanhes of Scripture. See Jer. xliii. 8; Ezek. xxx. 18.—[G. W.] This would be a strong argument, if required, against the notion of civilisation having come from the Ethiopians to Egypt; but the monuments prove beyond all question that the Ethiopians borrowed from Egypt their religion and their habits of civilisation. They even adopted the Egyptian as the language of religion and of the court, which it continued the power of the Pharaohs and their dominion was med to the frontier of Ethiopia. It was through Egypt too that Christianity passed into Ethiopia, even in the age of the Apostles (Acts viii. 27), as is shown by the eunuch of queen Candace (see note on this chapter). Other proofs of their early conversion are also found, as in the inscriptions at Farras, above Aboosimbel, one of which has the date of Diocletian, though the Nobatæ are said not to have become Christians till the reign of Justinian. The erroneous notion of Egypt having borrowed from Ethiopia may perhaps have been derived from the return of the Egyptian court to Egypt after it had retired to Ethiopia on the invasion of the Shepherds. [G. W.] CHAP. 31, 32. EXTENT OF KNOWN COURSE OF THE NILE. 47 31. Thus the course of the Nile is known, not only throughout Egypt, but to the extent of four months' journey either by land or water above the Egyptian boundary; for on calculation it will be found that it takes that length of time to travel from Elephantiné to the country of the Deserters. There the direction of the river is from west to east." Beyond, no one has any certain knowledge of its course, since the country is uninhabited by reason of the excessive heat. 32. I did hear, indeed, what I will now relate, from certain natives of Cyrêné. Once upon a time, they said, they were on a visit to the oracular shrine of Ammon, when it chanced that in the course of conver This only applies to the white river, or western branch of the Nile.[G. W.] This was in the modern Oasis of See-wah (Siwah), where remains of the temple are still seen. The oracle long continued in great repute, and though in Strabo's time it began to lose its importance (the mode of divination learnt from Etruria having superseded the consultation of the distant Ammon), still its answers were sought in the solution of difficult questions in the days of Juvenal, "after the cessation of the Delphic oracle." In consulting the god at the Oasis of Ammon, it was customary, says Quintus Curtius, "for the priests to carry the figure of the god in a gilded boat, ornamented with numerous silver patera hanging from it on both sides, behind which followed a train of matrons and virgins singing a certain uncouth hymn, in the manner of the country, with a view to propitiate the deity, and induce him to return a satisfactory answer." See the boat or ark of Nou (Nef) in the Temple of Elephantine in Pl. 56, 57 of Dr. Young and the Egyptian So. ciety. Of the appearance of the God he says, "id quod pro Deo colitur, non eandem effigiem habet, quam vulgo Diis artifices accommodaverunt, umbriculo maxime similis est habitus, smaragdis et gemmis coagmentatus:" but the word umbriculo has perplexed all commentators. All the cultivable spots, abounding with springs, in that desert, are called Wah; the chief of which are the Seewah, the Little Oasis, the Wah surnamed e' Dakhleh, i. e., "the inner," or western, and the Wah el Khargeh, "the outer Oasis," to the east of it, which is the Great Oasis. The others, of El Hayz, Faráfreh, and the Oases of the Blacks, in the interior, to the westward, are small, and some of them only temporarily inhabited; but those above mentioned are productive, and abound in palms, fruit-trees, rice, barley, and various productions. They are not, as often supposed, cultivated spots in the midst of an endless level tract of sand, but abrupt depressions in the high table-land, portions of which are irrigated by running streams, and, being surrounded by cliff's more or less precipitous, are in appearance not unlike a portion of the valley of the Nile, with its palm-trees, villages, and gardens, transported to the desert, without its river, and bordered by a sandy plain reaching to the hills that surround it, in which stunted tamarisk bushes, coarse grasses, and desert plants struggle to keep theinselves above the drifted sand that collects around them. G. W.] |