CHAP. VIII. THIRTIETH DYNASTY-NECTANEBO. 391 dynasty. The first of these was Nepherites (Nefaorot of the hiero- B.c. 405. glyphics), who ruled six years, according to Manetho.* In his reign Egypt enjoyed its liberty; and Nepherites was able even to send assistance to the Lacedæmonians against the common enemy, though his fleet of 100 ships laden with corn for their army having put into Rhodes was captured by the Persians, who had lately obtained possession of that island. Acoris, his successor, reigned 13 years (B.c. 399-386). Having made a treaty with Evagoras king of Cyprus, and secured the friendship of the Lacedæmonians, and of Gaus, the son of Tamus, an Egyptian who commanded the Persian fleet, he remained undisturbed by the Persians; and during this time he added considerably to the temples of Thebes and other places, and especially to the sculptures of one at Eileithyias left unfinished by the second Remeses.† Of Psammuthis and Muthis, who reigned each one year, and of Nepherites II., who reigned four months, little is known either from historians, or from the monuments; and the only one of them mentioned in the sculptures is the first, whose name Pse-maut ("the son of Maut") is found at Thebes. The dates, too, at this time are very uncertain; and the accession of the next, or 30th dynasty, of three Sebennytic kings, is variously placed in 387 and 381 B.C. 42. [Thirtieth Dynasty.]-This dynasty continued 38, or according to Eusebius 20, years. The first king was Nectanebo (Nakht-neb-f). During his reign the Persians sent a large force under Pharnabazus and Iphicrates to recover Egypt; but owing to the dissension of the two generals, and the care taken by Nectanebo to secure the defences of the country, the Persians were unable to re-establish their authority, and entangled amidst the channels of the rising Nile they were forced to retreat. Nectanebo had, therefore, leisure to adorn the temples of Egypt, in many of which his name may still be seen; and he was probably the last of the Pharaohs who erected an obelisk. Pliny, who calls him Nectabis, says it was without hieroglyphics. After 13 years (or 10 according to Eusebius) B.C. 369, Nectanebo was succeeded by Teos or Tachos, who, profiting by the disturbed death (B.c. 405), and 18 at his first revolt. Diodorus mentions a Psammeti. chus, who preceded Nepherites, or Nephreus. I formerly supposed this temple to have been of an older king Uchoreus. 392 THIRTY-FIRST DYNASTY-OCHUS. APP. BOOK II. state of the dominions of Persia, and wishing still further to weaken her power, entered into a treaty with the Lacedæmonians, and determined to attack her in Asia. The Lacedæmonians having furnished a strong force, commanded by Agesilaus in person, and assisted by a fleet under Chabrias the Athenian, Tachos advanced into Syria, taking upon himself the supreme direction of the expedition. But in the course of the campaign his nephew Nectanebo, whom he had detached from the army with a large body of Egyptian troops, made a party against him, and being assisted by his father, called also Nectanebo, who had been appointed governor of Egypt by Tachos during his absence, openly revolted. Agesilaus, already affronted at the treatment he had received from Tachos, gladly supported the pretender; and Chabrias, who had refused to join him, having been recalled by the Athenians, Tachos was unable to maintain his authority, and having fled to Sidon, and thence into Persia, his nephew Nectanebo II. was declared king (B.c. 361). There was, however, a rival competitor in a Mendesian chief, who putting himself at the head of the people, and favoured by the incapacity of Nectanebo, would have succeeded in wresting the sceptre from his grasp, had he not been opposed by the talents of Agesilaus, who crushed him at once, and secured Nectanebo on the throne. Though preparations were set on foot by Artaxerxes to recover 43. Egypt, no expedition was sent thither by him, and dying in 363 B.C., he was succeeded by Ochus, or Artaxerxes III., in whose reign some attempts were made to reconquer the country, but without success; the consequence of which failure was a confederacy between Nectanebo and the Phoenicians, who were thus encouraged to throw off the yoke of Persia. To aid them in their revolt, and expel the Persians, Nectanebo sent them 4000 Greeks under the orders of Mentor the Rhodian; but Ochus having soon afterwards put himself at the head of a formidable army, advanced into and overran all Phoenicia; and Mentor having deserted to the enemy, Nectanebo was forced to take measures for the defence of his own country. Pelusium was garrisoned by 5000 Greeks, and his army, composed of 100,000 men, of whom 10,000 were Greeks, prepared to repel the invader. And had it not been for the blunders of Nectanebo, the Persians might have been again foiled, as their chief attack on Pelusium was repulsed; but Nectanebo, panic-struck on seeing the Persians occupy an unguarded point, and fearing lest his retreat should be cut off, fled to Memphis. Pelusium then surrendered, and Mentor, who had CHAP. VIII. DURATION OF THE EGYPTIAN KINGDOM. 393 accompanied the Persians, having taken all the fortified places of Lower Egypt, Nectanebo retired into Ethiopia, and Egypt once more became a Persian province. 44. [Thirty-first Dynasty.]-The reign of Ochus is represented to have B.C. 343. been most cruel and oppressive. Persecuting the people, and insulting their religion, he ordered the sacred bull Apis to be roasted and eaten, so that the Egyptians, according to Plutarch, "represented him in their catalogue of kings by a sword" (de Is. s. 2). He had recovered the country in his 20th year, and reigned over it two years, and being followed by Arses and Darius, these three compose Manetho's 31st dynasty, which was terminated by Alexander's conquest of Egypt (B.c. 332), and the rule of the Macedonian kings. These constituted the Ptolemaic, or Lagide, dynasty; and at length in 30 B.c. Egypt became a Roman province. Though Egypt had long ceased to be a dominant kingdom before the time of the Caesars, the duration of its power, without reckoning its revival as a state under the Ptolemics, was far greater than generally fell to the lot of other nations; and when we compare with it the brief glory of the Persian empire to the conquest by Alexander, or that of Babylon, or even the whole period of Assyrian greatness, we find that Egypt continued to be a conquering state, and extended its arms beyond its own frontier for a far longer period than any of those countries; and calculating only its most glorious days, from the reign of Thothmes III. to that of Neco, when it lost its possessions in Asia, it may be said to have lasted as a powerful kingdom upwards of 800 years. [For the various monuments erected by different Egyptian kings, see the Historical Chapter in my Manners and Customs of the Antient Egyptians,' and my Topography of Thebes,' and 'Modern Egyptians.']—(G. W.) 6 394 DIFFERENT VIEWS OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY. APP. B. II. NOTE.-[G. R. 1875.] Ir has been thought best to retain the above sketch of the Early History of Egypt unchanged. It will always have a value as expressing the matured judgment of one of the most judicious and painstaking of English Egyptologers. At the present time, however, it seems to the general editor only fair to students, that they should have presented to them, together with the views of Sir G. Wilkinson, the conclusions to which other savans have come on the subject of Egyptian history and chronology. The views are up to a certain point so similar, beyond that so widely divergent, that the statement and comparison of them is the best mode of showing to what extent Egyptian History and Chronology may be regarded as tolerably well established, at what point serious doubt begins, and where doubt changes into the wildest confusion and uncertainty. The views which it is proposed to consider, and tabulate, are those, in the first place, of M. Mariette and M. Lenormant, with which Dr. Brugsch in the main agrees; secondly, those of the late Chevalier Bunsen, embodied in his great work, "Egypt's Place in Universal History;" and thirdly, those of what may be called "the English School," represented especially by Sir Gardner Wilkinson and Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole, the learned head of the Numismatic Department at the British Museum. These writers all agree in regarding the dynasties of Manetho as historical, and making them the basis of their respective schemes; but they all more or less depart from Manetho's numbers. The differences between them arise mainly from the different views which they take as to the extent to which Manetho's dynasties are contemporary. M. Mariette, indeed, lays it down in the most formal way, that contemporary dynasties are wholly absent from Manetho's scheme;1 but his follower, M. Lenormant, gives up this view. He makes the eleventh dynasty contemporary with the ninth and tenth, and the 1 The original work of M. Mariette is not accessible to me; but I find the following quoted from it by M. Lenormant (Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient, vol. i. pp. 323-4) :— "Il y eut donc incontestablement en Egypte des dynasties simultanées; mais Manéthon les a rejetées pour n'admettre que celles qui furent réputées légitimes, et elles ne sont plus dans ses listes.... Les preuves monumentales surabondent et ont été recueillies en grand nombre par les Égyptologues qui démontrent que toutes les races royales énumerées par le prêtre de Sébennytus ont occupé le trône les unes après les autres." 2 Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient, vol. i. p. 348. "C'est de Thèbes que sortirent les six rois de la onzième NOTE. VIEW OF M. MARIETTE, UNTENABLE. 6 395 fourteenth contemporary with the thirteenth.3 Dr. Brugsch goes further. He considers the ninth and tenth dynasties to have been contemporary with the eighth and eleventh, the fourteenth with the thirteenth, the seventeenth with the fifteenth, sixteenth, and part of the eighteenth, and the twenty-fifth with the end of the twenty-fourth and the beginning of the twenty-sixth. Baron Bunsen advances a step beyond Dr. Brugsch. He places the second, fifth, ninth, tenth, fourteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth in the list of collateral dynasties, regarding them as parallel to the third, the sixth, the eighth, and the fifteenth. Finally, the English Egyptologers, Sir G. Wilkinson and Mr. R. Stuart Poole, carry out the principle of contemporaneous dynasties still further than Baron Bunsen. With them the third dynasty is contemporary with the first," the second with the fourth and fifth,1 the ninth, tenth, and eleventh with the sixth, the twelfth and thirteenth (at Thebes), the fourteenth (at Xoïs), and the three shepherd dynasties, the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth, with the seventh and eighth (at Memphis).3 2 The question which of these various opinions is to be preferred, the present writer cannot pretend to determine. He thinks, however, that M. Mariette's view-that none of Manetho's dynasties are contemporarywhich is contrary to that of all the other authorities, must be given up, and that the real question must be regarded as one of degree, viz. to what dynastie, appelés alternativement Entef et Montouhotep, qui luttèrent énergiquement contre les séparatistes du Delta, répresentés par les neuvième et dixième dynasties de Manéthon." 3 Ibid. p. 358. "Rien ne s'oppose donc formellement à ce que nous adoptions l'opinion proposée déjà par plusieurs érudits modernes, et qui paraît la plus vraisemblable, d'après laquelle la quatorzième dynastie de Manéthon, originaire de Xoïs, se serait élevée dans le Delta, en competition avec la treizième dynastie thebaine, pendant toute la fin de celle-ci. La division de l'Egypte en deux royaumes, rivaux et ennemis," &c. 4 Histoire d'Égypte, p. 49. "Les deux dynasties de Héracléopolis, la neuvième et la dixième, ne sont que des maisons collaterales aux précé. dentes." And again of the same, earlier in the work (p. 47): "Nous pourrons le mieux expliquer cette différence par la supposition de dynasties contemporaines dans la Haute et dans la Basse Égypte." 5 Ibid. p. 72. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. p. 288. 8 See Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. ii. "We have already established the fact that the two dynasties (the second and third) "not only commenced simultaneously, but also that their length was the same (p. 106). "The assumption of the consecutive. ness of the fifth and sixth dynasties leads to endless absurdities" (p. 208). "The kings of both the Herakleopolitan dynasties-the ninth and tenth-were contemporary with the Theban kings .... of the eleventh and twelfth dynasties" (p. 239; compare vol. iv. pp. 499-500). For the chronology of the Hyksos period, see vol. iv. pp. 510-512, corrected in vol. v. p. 63, where the entire period of the "Middle Empire" is reduced to one of 350 years. 9 See above, ch. viii. § 7; and compare Biblical Dictionary, vol. i. p. 508, ad voc. EGYPT. 1 Supra, ch. viii. § 9. 2 Supra, ch. viii. §§ 12, 13. |