Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1163

 THEBAE AEGYPTJ. Old Jlonarchy, to have exercised the functions of royalty. The reign of Thothmes III. is one of the most splendid in the annals of the 1 8th dynasty. The frontiers of Aegypt extended S. a little heyond the second cataract, and E. nearly to Mount Sinai. Thothmes III. completed in Thebes itself many of the structures begun by his predeces- sors, e. g. the palace of the kings, — and generally enriched the cities of the Thebaid with sumptuous fcuildings. He commenced the temple at Amada, which was completed by Amunoph II. and Thoth- mes IV; and his name was inscribed on the monu- ments of Ombi, Apollinopolis Magna, and Eilithya. Thebes, however, was the centre of his architectural labours, and even the rains of his great works there have served to adorn other capital cities. In the Hippodrome of Constantinople is a mutilated obelisk of the reign of Thothmes III., which was brought from Aegypt by one of the Byzantine emperors, and which originally adorned the central court oi Kurnak. Again the obelisk which Pope Sixtus V. set up in front of the church of St. John Lateran at Rome, the loftiest and most perfect structure of its kind, was tirst raised in this reign, and bears its founder's titles on the central column of its hieroglyphics. The records of this reign are inscribed on two interesting monuments, — a painting in a tomb at Goiirneh (Hoskins, Travels in Aethwpia, p. 437, foil.; Wilkinson, Mod. Eyypt and Thebes, vol. ii. p. 2.34), and the great Tablet of Karnak, which is strictly an historical and statistical document, and which, there can be little doubt, is the very Tablet which the priests of Thebes exhibited and expounded to Caesar Germanicus in a. d. 16 (Tac. Attn. ii. GO). From the paintings and the hieroglyphics, so far as the latter have been read, on these monuments, it appears that in this reign tribute was paid into tiie Theban treasury by nations dwelling on the Ijorders of the Caspian sea, on the banks of tiie Tigris, in the kingdom of Meroe or Aethiopia, and by the more savage tribes who wandered over the eastern flank of the great Sahara. Thirteen expedi- tions, indeed, of Thothmes III., are distinctly re- gistered, and the 35th year of his reign, according to Lepsius, is recorded. At this period the kingdom of Thebes must have been the most powerful and opulent in the world. Of the son of Thothmes, Amunophis II., little is known; but he also added to the erections at Thebes, and reared other monuments in Nubia. Inscriptions found at Stirabit- el-Kaalim, in the peninsula of Sinai, record his name, and at Primis (^Ihrini) he appears in a qieos, or excavated chapel, seated with two principal officers, and receiv- ing the account of a great chase of wild beasts. Xext in importance, though not in succession, of the Theban kings of the 18th dynasty, is Amun- oph, or Amenophis III. His name is found at Tonmbos, near the third Cataract, and he perma- nently extended the frontiers of the Theban king- dom to Soleb, a degree further to S. than it had hitherto reached. These extensions are not only geo- graphically, but commercially, important, inasmuch as the farther southward the boundaries extended, the nearer did the Aegyptians approach to the regions which produced gold, ivory, gems, and aroinatics, and the more considerable, therefore, was the trade of Thebes itself. Only on the supposition that it was for many generations one of the greatest em- poriums in the world can we understand the lavish expenditure of its monarchs, and its fame among northern nations as the greatest and riciiest of cities. TIIEBAE AKGYPTT. 11.39 And this consideration is the more important to- wards a correct estimate of the resources of the Theban kingdom, since its proper territory barelv sufficed for the support of its dense population, anil there is no evidence of its having any remarkable traffic by sea. It is probable, indeed, that the do- minions of Amenophis III. stretched to within five days' journey of Axume on the Ked Sea; for a scarabaeus inscribed with his name and that of his wife Taia mentions the land of Karoei or Kaloei, supposed to be Coloe (Ilosellini, Afon. Stor. iii. 1, 261 ; Birch, Gall. Brit. Mus. p. 83), as their south- ern limit. Thebes was enriched by this monarch with two vast palaces, one on the eastern, the other on the western bank of the Nile. He also com- menced and erected the greater portion of the build- ings at Luxor. On the walls of their chambers Amenophis was designated " The vanquisher of the Meniiahoun," an unknown people, and the " Pacifica- tor of Aegypt." From the fragment of a monolithal granite statue now in the Louvre, it may be inferred that his victories were obtained over negro races, and consequently were the results of campaigns in the in- terior of Libya and the S. of Aethiopia. Amenophis has a further claim to notice, since he was prob.ably the Memnon, son of Aurora, whom Achilles slew at the siege of Troy. Of all the Aethiopian works the Memnonian statues, from their real magnitude and from the fabulous stories related of them, have at- tracted the largest share of attention. By the word Memnon the Greeks understood an Aethiopian or man of dark complexion (Stepli. B. s. v. Agathem. ap. Cr. Geograph. Min.), or rather, jierhaps, a dark- complexioned warrior (comp. Eustath. ad II. v. 639); and the term may very properly have been applied to the conqueror of the southern land, who was also hereditary prince of Aethiopia. The statues of Memnon, which now stand alone on tbe plain of Thebes, originally may have been the figures at the entrance of the long dromos of crio-sphinxes which led up to the Amenopheion or palace of Amen- ophis. Of the eastern and northern limits of the Theban kingdom under the third Am.enophis, we have no evidence .Mmilar to that afforded by the tablet of Karnak ; yet from the monuments of his battles we may infer that he levied tribute from the Arabians on the Ped Sea and in the peninsula of Sinai, and at one time pushed his conquests as far as Mesopotamia. According to JIanetho lie reigned 31 years: his tomb is the most ancient of the sepulchres in the Bab-el- Melook ; and even so late as the Ptolemaic age he had divine honouj's paid him by a special priest-college called " The pastophori of Amenophis in the Memnoneia." (Ken- rick, Ancient Aer/ypt, vol. ii. p. 246.) Setci Menephtliah is the next monarch of the 18th dynasty who, in connection with Thebes, deserves mention. Besides the temples which he constructed at Amada in Nubia and at Silsilis (Sil.ieleh), ho began the great palace called Menephtheion in that city, although he left it to bo completed by his suc- cessors Iiameses II. and III. From the paintings and inscriptions on the niins at Karnak and Luxor it appears that this monarch triumphed over five Asiatic nations as well as over races whose position cannot be ascertained, but wliose features and dress point to the interior of Libya. Tiie tomb and sar- cophagus of Setei Menephtliah were discovered by Belzoni in the Bab-el- Melook. {Travels, vol. i. p. 167.) If he be the same with the Setlios of the lists, he reigned .50 or 51 years. Wc now come ic 4 1) ^