Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/474

 466 EGYPT against paganism, which still held its ground, and in Alexandria numbered among its adhe- rents most of the learned and scientific classes and the students in the schools of philosophy. In compliance with the orders of the emperor, the pagan temples were broken into by the Christians and the statues of the deities de- stroyed or overthrown. The great temple of Serapis, which had been for ages the most sacred and celebrated of pagan fanes, was plundered and desecrated, and its library of 700,000 volumes despoiled by the mob. The pagans resented these outrages, and took arms in defence of their religion ; but after several battles had been fought in the streets, the Christians were victorious, and the pagan lead- ers were driven from the city. In the reign of Theodosius II., Cyril, archbishop of Alex- andria, in 414, expelled every Jew from the city. The pagans were next assailed, and one of their most popular teachers of philos- ophy, Plypatia, daughter of Theon the mathe- matician, was brutally murdered. At a later period the theological controversies of Egypt culminated in the complete separation of the Coptic or Egyptian church from the orthodox, whose bishops held a council at Chalcedon in 451, and denounced the Egyptian doctrines as heretical. The animosities generated by these contests alienated the Egyptians from the gov- ernment at Constantinople, so that they made no opposition when in the reign of Heraclius, in 616, the country was overrun by the forces of the Persian king Chosroes II., who held it ten years, until the outbreak of Mohammedanism so harassed theJPersians that Heraclius was enabled to recover the province, only however to lose it a few years later, in 640, when it was conquered by the Arabs, led by Amru, the general of the caliph Omar. For more than two centuries after the Mohammedan conquest Egypt remained a province of the caliphate. In 868 Ahmed the viceroy threw off his alle- giance and established an independent king- dom, which lasted 37 years, when the caliphs again reduced it to subjection. After a long period of anarchy, Moez, the fourth of the Fatimite caliphs, who reigned in northern Africa, and were rivals of the caliphs of Bag- dad, conquered Egypt in 970, built the city of Cairo, and made it the seat of his government. The Fatimite dynasty ruled Egypt for two cen- turies. The most distinguished of them was Hakem (died 1021), the prophet and messiah of the Druses, who still look for his return to earth. Adhed, the last of the Fatimites, died in 1171, and was succeeded by his vizier or prime minister, Saladin, the chivalrous and successful adversary of the crusaders. He took the title of sultan of Egypt, and at his death in 1193 was sovereign of a vast empire which his sons divided among themselves, Egypt falling to the share of Aziz. Successive invasions by the crusaders harassed Egypt for the following century, but they were all repelled by the descendants of Saladin, with signal loss to the Christians. The last and most disastrous of these attacks was made by Louis IX. of France in 1248, who landed with a large army and the flower of the French chivalry at Damietta, but after some successes was defeated and compelled to capitulate with the loss of 30,000 men. A remarkable revolution next took place in Egypt. Saladin and his successors had organized a numerous body of guards, call- ed Mamelukes, composed exclusively of slaves brought from the countries around the Caspian sea. They gradually acquired such power and influence that at length they deposed their lawful sovereign and made one of their own number sultan. For about 130 years these mercenaries controlled the destinies of Egypt, making and unmaking sultans at their pleasure. At length, at the close of the 14th century, the Circassians, from whom the ranks of the Mamelukes had long been largely recruited, overthrew the power of the Turkish Mamelukes and took the government into their own hands. An- other century of anarchy succeeded, and in 1517 Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman sul- tan Selim I. and reduced to a Turkish province. Some of the Mameluke sultans were men of talent and energy, and under their rule Egypt was at times the centre of an extensive though fluctuating empire. The arts were cultivated with some success, as is shown by the mosques and tombs of these sultans at Cairo, which justly rank among the most magnificent and elegant specimens of Saracenic architecture. Under their sway Cairo became the chief seat of Mohammedan learning and intellectual cul- tivation. For two centuries the Turkish pa- shas ruled Egypt, which decayed like all the lands subjected to them. But in the 18th cen- tury the Mamelukes, who still constituted the military force of the province, gradually re- gained their former power to such an extent that in 1768, under the lead of their ablest and most influential chief, Ali Bey, they threw off the Turkish yoke and declared Egypt inde- pendent. But after four years Ali Bey was betrayed and poisoned, and the authority of the sultan was nominally reestablished. Con- fusion and civil war between the different factions of the Mamelukes continued to pre- vail until in 1798 the invasion of Egypt by Na- poleon Bonaparte united their chiefs in self- defence. Their famous cavalry was forced to give way before the science and tactics of Europe. In the battle of the Pyramids the Mameluke army was nearly annihilated. The French conquered the whole of Egypt, and held it till 1801, when they were expelled by a British army under Generals Abercromby and Hutchinson. After the departure of the French civil war broke out afresh between the Turks and the surviving Mamelukes, which re- sulted in 1806 in the elevation to the post of pasha of Mehemet Ali, an Albanian adventurer who had become leader of one of the contend- ing factions. His authority, however, was not firmly established until after a long struggle