Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/54

 38 AEGYPTUS. tiiey inferred, ft6ta certain eimiUrities of doctrine and nsages, that the Indians, Ethiopians or Nnbians, and Egyptians were derived from the same stock (Arrian, Indk. vi. 9); and Diodoms, who had con- versed with Aethiopian enyoys in Egypt aboat b. c 58, derives both the Egyptians and then* civilisation from Meroe (iii. 11). Both opinions have found nmnerons supporters in ancient and modem times, and Heeren has constructed upon Diodonu a theoiy of a priestly colonisation of Egypt from MeroS, which is interesting without being convincing. No nation has bequeathed to tu so many or such accurate memorials of its fbnn, oomplezian, and I^ysiognamy as the Egyptian. We have in its mummies pcrtnuts, and upon its tombs pictures of its people as they looked and lived, individually and socially. That the Egyptians were darker in hue than either the Greeks or even the neighbour- ing Asiatics, is shown by the terms in which Greek, Latin, and Hebrew writers mention them. To their progenitor the Hebrews gave the name of Ham, or adutt (Genet, x. 6): Herodotus, speak- ing of the Golchians, sa3rB that they were an Egyp- tian colony because they were blade in complexion (^fitkdyxpon)^ and curly-haired (ovA^ptxcs, iL 104): Ludan, in his Navigwm (vol. viiL p. 155, Bipont ed.), describes a young Egyptian mariner as like a n^ro: and Ammianus (xxiL 16. § 23) calls them tubfutadi et atrati. But the Egyptians were not a negro race — a supposition contradicted alike by osteology and by monumental paintings, where negroes often appear, but always either as tributaries or captives. It is probable, indeed, that the Nile-valley contained three races, with an admixture of a fourth. On the eastern frontier the Arabian type prevailed : on the western, the Libyan; while the fourth variety arose frx>m inter- marriages between the Egyptians Proper and the Nubians or Aethiupians of MeroS. The ruling caste, however, was an elder branch of the Syro- Arobian fiunily, which in two separate divisions descended the Tigris and the Euphrates; and while the northern stream colonised the land of Canaan and the friture emigres of Babylon and Nineveh, the southern spread over Arabia Felix, and entered Egypt from the cast. This supposition, and this alone, will account for the Caucasian type of the Coptic skull and facial outline, and corresponds with the Mosaic ethnology in the 10th chapter of Genesis, which derives the Egyptians from Ham. We may allow, too, for considerable admixture, even of the ruling castes, with the cognate races to the south and east; and hence, on the one hand, the friUness of lips, and, on the other, the elongated Nubian eye, need not compel us to define the inhaUtants of the Nile-valley as an African rather than an Aaiatio race. The Egyptians may be said to be intermediate between the Syro- Arabian and the Ethiopic type; and as at this day the Copt is at once recognised in Syria by his dark hue (unpeau notrd^re, Volney, Vojf<^, vol. L p. 114), the duskier complexion^ brown, with a tinge of red — of the ancient Egyp- tians may be ascribed solely to their climate, and to those modifying causes which, in the course of gene- rations, affect both the osteology and the physiology of long-settled races. Nor does their language contradict this statement, although the variations between the Coptic and Syro- Ambian idioms are more striking than those of form and colour. The Coptic, the language of the native Christian population of Egypt, is now universaUy acknowledged to be sub- AEGYPTU& siantially the same as the old Sgypiaan. It ift Imperfectly understood, since it has long ceased to be a living speech. Yet the ultimate analyas of its elements shows it to have been akin to the Se- mitic, and derived fixnn a common source. ni. PcpukUion, Many causes combined to give the Greek and Roman writers an exaggerated conception of the population of Egypt, — the great works of masoniy, the infinitesimal cultivation of the soil, and the fiurt that, the kings and higher order of priests excepted, every Egyptian was either a husbandman or a manu- fiicturer. To these causes, implying a vast amount of dispoeable labour, yet arguing also a complete command of it by Uie government, must be added the cheapness of food, and the small quantity of it consumed by the people generally. Health and longevity were common in a land where the climate was salubrious, diet simple, and indolence almost unknown. The Egyptian women were unusually fruitful; though we can hardly give credence to the statements of ancient writers, that five children at a birth were common (Aristot. Bist. Anim. vii. 5), and that even seven were not reckoned prodigious (Plm. H. jY. vii. 3; Strab. xvi. 605). Still there is reason to think that the population fell short of the estimates transmitted by ancient writers. That a census was periodically taken, is probable from the fact that S^ostris caused the land to bo accurately surveyed, and Amasis, towards the end of die monarchy, compelled every male to report to a magistrate his means of livelihood. (Herod, ii. 109, 177.) Herodotus, however, gives no estimate of the population, nor has any record of a census been hitherto discovered on the native monuments. Diodorus (i. 31) says that it amounted, in the Pharaonic era, to seven millions, and that it was not less in his own day (b. c. 58). Germanicus (Tac. ^rm. ii. 60; compare Strab. p. 816) was informed, in A. D. 16, by the priests of Thebes, that Egypt, in the reign of Rameses Sesostris, contained 700,000 men of the military age. If that age, as at Athens, extended from eighteen to sixty, and | be allowed for adults between those periods of life, the entire popuLition (5 x 700,000) will amount to 3,500,000. Allow 500,000 for error, and add | for slaves and casual residents, and 6,000,000 will be the maxi- mum of the census of Egypt. In the llaoedoniaa and Roman eras, 300,000 must be indnded for the fixed or floating population of Alexandria (Joseph. B.J. il 16). According to Herodotus (ii. 177), there were, in the reign of Amasis, 20,000 inhabited towns, and Diodorus (/. c.) says that 18,000 towns were entered on the register. Many of these, how> ever, were probably little more than walled villages, nor have we any means of knowing their average area or popuktion. Yet it should be remembered that, even allowing for the less perfect system of embankment and irrigation in modem times, the extent of productive soil has not decreased. Two centuries ago the population of modem Egypt was loosely estimated at 4 millions. During the French occupation of the country in 1798 — 1801, it was computed at 2^ millions. Sir Gardner Wilkinsan {Modem Egypt and Thebes^ vol. i. p. 256) reduces it to 1 1 million. rV. TheNomet. The Nile-valley was parcelled out into a number of cantons, varying in size and number. Each of