Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/388

 EGYPT

338

EGYPT

who for centuries contended with Babylonia and Chaldea for supremacy in Western Asia. On their side the kings of Egypt had to secure their own borders (principally the southern) against the neighbouring tribes, a necessity which led them, after many cen- turies of warfare, to the conquest of Nubia. As early as the reign of Pepi I (Sixth Dynasty) Nubia had been brought under con- trol so far as to re- ceive Egyptian colonies. Under the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, chiefly under User- tasenIII(theSesos- tris of the Greeks), the conquest was achieved, and the valley of the Upper Nile as far as the Second Cataract was organized into an Egyptian prov- ince. The Libyans, also, and the tribes settled between the Nile and the Red .Sea had to be re- peatedly repelled or conquered. The brief records of such punitive expeditions, which appear on the Palermo Stone, attribute them to dates as early as the first two dynasties. Extensive com- mercial relations were maintained with the Syrian coast (whither King Snefru, of the Third Dj-nasty, sent a fleet to procure cedar logs from Mount Lebanon), with the Upper Nile districts, with .\rabia to the soutli, and with the Somali coast (Punt, Piianit) to the east. Roads were built for this commerce between Coptos and different points on the Red Sea. The chief of these roads led through Wadi Hammamat (Rohanii or Rehenu Valley), the rich quarries of which were oper- ated by the Egj-ptians from the time of the Fifth DJ^lasty; it furnished the niger, or Thebaicus, lapis, a hard dark stone which was used for statues and coffins. In Asia proper the pharaohs of that time sought no extension of territory, with the exception of a few points in the Peninsula of Sinai, where, as early as the First Dynasty, but especially since the time of Snefrd, they operated mines of copper and turquoise. As a rule on the north-west border they kept on the defen- sive against the raids of the nomadic tribes estab- lished in the Syrian desert and, like the modern bedouins, always ready for plunder. On that side the frontier was protected by a wall across the Wadi Tumi- lat and a line of forts extending from the Nile to the Red Sea. Occasionally the Egyptians resorted to counter-raids on the Sj-rian territory, as in the case of the Amus and Hirushaitus under Pepi I, but, the pun- ishment inflicted, they invariably returned to their line of defence.

The seat of government during that first period was several times shifted from one city to another. Menes, before the imion of the two kingdoms, very likely resided at This, in his native nome of Abydos, in Upper Egj'pt. Having succeeded in bringing Lower Egj-pt under his rule, he appropriately selected Memphis for the capital of the new kingdom, as being more central. During the Ninth and Tenth Dynas- ties, Heracleopolis, only a short distance south of Memphis, became the official seat of government, for no special known reason- — perhaps simply because the pharaohs of the reigning dynasties had originally been natives and princes of these nomes. They were op- posed by the princes of Thebes (Eleventh Dynasty) who finally (Twelfth Dynasty) succeeded in over- throwing them and selected their own city as capital.

This radical change had the advantage of briaging Nubia within closer range, and it may have contri- buted substantially to the conquest of that province ; but it weakened the northern border, which was now too far from the centre of political life.

The pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty (most of whom were called Sebek-hotep or Nofir-hotep), with- out abandoning Thebes, seem to have paid more at- tention than their predecessors to the cities of the Delta, where — at Tanis in particular — they occasion- ally resided, and it was from Xois (Sakha), a city of Lower Egypt, that the next following (Fourteenth) dynasty arose. It seems that the kings of that dynasty never succeeded in establishing a firm and lasting government. Their rapid succession on the throne and the famous invasion of the Hyksos which Manetho registers at that time, point to internal dis- sensions and a condition of affairs verging on anarchy. " At this time there came to us a king Tim;eos by name. Under this king, God, why I do not know, sent an adverse wind to us, and against all likelihood from the parts of the East people of ignoble race, com- ing unexpectedly, invaded the country and conquered it easily and without battle." This testimony con- tains contradictory elements. It is difficult to imag- ine how an invasion could result in a conquest unless it took place gradually and consequently not " unex- pectedly". The most probable interpretation of Manetho's words seems to be: that the invaders came in peaceful quest of new homes, and not all in one body, though in comparatively large numbers at a time; that they first settled, with their flocks, in the rich pasture lands of the Delta, then, little by little, adapted themselves to the political life of the country, some succeeding in occupying important situations in the army or in the administration; that finally one of them, favoured by the rivalries of competitors for the vacant throne, seized the reins of government and was recognized as king not only by the men of his own race, but also by quite a considerable party of the na- tives.

The identity of the Hyksos has been the subject of

Seconh 1

long discussions. Some, with l)e I'ara, think they were the same as the Hittites, others (Baedeker, "Egypt", p. Ixxix) see in them simple Syrian be- douins. The opinion which seems most probable and best agrees with the tradition preserved by Manetho, identifies them with the large Canaanitic family once settled in Lower Chaldea, along the Persian Gulf and the Arabian coast. According to Professor Maspdro (op. cit., 194 sqq.), it was the invasion of the lower Euphrates by the Elamites tmder Kudurnakhunte (2285 B. c.) that forced this family to migrate to the West in search of a new home. The seafaring tribes settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean