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The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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By the side of these “kings” there are, moreover, numerous princes (Ur) of the Ma, designated in other cases as lords (rpa) or nomarchs (ha). Independent rulers in the few provinces of the Delta, in Athribis, Mendes, Sebennytus, Saïs, etc., and the provost of Letopolis bore the title of high priest.
These leading men came mostly from the leaders of the mercenaries, and their possessions and power constantly tottered. It is very possible that the single states formed a slack political confederation, and it is probable that the descendants of the old ruling house were recognised as the chief feudal lords, while those rulers who usurped the title of king laid claim to complete independence.
THE ETHIOPIAN CONQUEST
[ca. 1000-775 B.C.]
At the time when a great conquering kingdom was forming itself on the upper Tigris and began to lay hold on all sides around it, the power of the Pharaohs in the Nile Valley completely went down. The kingdom of Tehutimes III had been divided into a succession of small independent principalities and was ruled by dynasties which had arisen from the leaders of the mercenaries. On the other hand, in the upper valley of the Nile, in the lands first joined to Egypt in the time of Usertsen III and afterwards for five centuries by Tehutimes I, there arose the powerful kingdom of Cush (Greek Æthiopia, now Nubia). Its capital was Napata in the Gebel Barhal, “the sacred mountain,” at the foot of which Amenhotep III had already founded a great sanctuary to the Theban Amen. By its long connection with Egypt, Egyptian culture was completely naturalised in Ethiopia. Egyptian was the official language, the writing was in hieroglyphics, the styling of the kings was after that of the Pharaohs. Above all, the Egyptian, and especially the Theban, religion of Amen gained complete dominion in Cush. In the name of Amen the kings went to battle; they were fully dependent on his instructions and oracles; they carefully observed the laws on outer cleanliness and on the food forbidden by religion. What had remained theory in Egypt, became practice in Ethiopia; a long inscription describes to us how the god himself immediately elects the king through his oracle, and strikingly confirms the accounts of the Greeks. Whence it followed that the priests could command the king in the name of the god to put an end to his life, a prerogative which Ergamenes abolished in the third century B.C. By these circumstances it can be seen why the Egyptian priests described Ethiopia to the Greeks as the Promised Land. From these circumstances it can also be supposed that the rise of the kingdom of Napata was connected with the usurpation of the priests of the Theban Amen at the time of the XXIst Dynasty, an assumption which is confirmed by many of the kings having borne the name of Piankhi, prominent in the family of Her-Hor. After that time there was no question of the rule of the Pharaohs over Cush; so perhaps relatives of the priests of Amen may have founded the Ethiopian town circa 1000 B.C.
Head of Uasarken III
(Now in the British Museum)
When the power of the XXIInd Dynasty became lamed, the kings of Napata could extend their dominion to Upper Egypt. Probably about the end of the reign of Shashanq III, 800 B.C., Thebes may have fallen into their hands; in the first half of the eighth century the valley of the Nile to the vicinity of Hermopolis was under the rule of the Ethiopian king Piankhi. In his time the Prince Tefnekht of Saïs succeeded in subjecting the west part of the Delta in Lower Egypt, in winning Memphis, and in making all the numerous princes, kings, and small lords of the middle and east Delta, “all princes of Lower Egypt who wear the feather” (the sign of the warrior casts of the Ma), acknowledge his supremacy. He did not adopt the title of king, probably because he wished to violate as little as possible the relations of rank which existed amongst the mercenary princes. From Memphis he went south, subjected Crocodilopolis, Oxyrhynchus and others, besieged Heracleopolis, the royal residence of Peftotbast, and compelled King Nimrod of Hermopolis to submit. Then Piankhi stepped forward, called to help by the adversaries of Tefnekht. His army conquered a hostile fleet on the Nile, drove Tefnekht back at Heracleopolis, besieged Nimrod in Hermopolis, and seized a number of small places. Then the king himself appeared at the seat of war; he compelled Nimrod to capitulate, and received rich presents from him. After the fall of Hermopolis, all the small places subjected themselves, only Memphis had to be taken by storm, after a plan of Tefnekht to relieve it had failed. Then Piankhi advanced to the Delta; small princes hastened together before him to swear allegiance and bring him rich gifts. Thus Tefnekht was no longer strong enough to assert his position; Piankhi may also have had misgivings as to waging a dangerous war in the west Delta. He contented himself with Tefnekht’s taking the oath of allegiance in the presence of the ambassador of the Ethiopian king and sending him presents after being promised safety.
[ca. 775-704 B.C.]
The campaigns of Piankhi, which fell in the year XXI of his reign (circa 775 B.C.), do not seem to have resulted in a lasting subjection of Egypt. If the vassal king Uasarken (III) of Bubastis was the second ruler of the XXIIIrd Dynasty, the Ethiopians must by that time have been expelled from Upper Egypt; for we meet with the third ruler of this house, Psamus, in two small inscriptions in the temple of Karnak. In the monuments Manetho lets him be succeeded by an unauthenticated king, Zet. Then follows the XXIVth Dynasty, which, according to him, only consists of the Saïte Bakenranf (probably 733-729 B.C.), who, according to the reliable Greek reports, was a son of Tnephachthus, that is to say, of Tefnekht, Piankhi’s adversary. In tradition he is praised as a wise prince and great legislator; from the monuments we only know that in his sixth year, an Apis was placed in the same sepulchral chamber with one that died under Shashanq IV; according to this he probably succeeded the last title-bearing king of the XXIInd Dynasty, but must already have reigned for some time previously in Saïs.
In Ethiopia, Piankhi (it is not known whether after one or more interregnums) was followed by Kashta, who was married to Shepenapet, a daughter of King Uasarken, probably Uasarken III of Bubastis. His son Shabak repeated the expedition to Egypt, conquered Bakenranf,—according to Manetho he burnt him alive,—and compelled the local dynasties to acknowledge his supremacy (728 B.C.). He took the title of a king of Egypt, but as real rulers of the land he established his sister Ameniritis and her husband, Piankhi (II?). We often meet with Shabak and his sister in the temples of Thebes, likewise in Hammamat and elsewhere; an exquisite alabaster statue of the queen has been found in Karnak. Greek tradition asserts that the Ethiopian king reigned very mildly over Egypt, executions never took place, criminals were made to build canals and dams. But a fixed and uniform dominion was never practised by the Ethiopians over Egypt. As in the time of Piankhi, the local dynasties remained in possession of their dominions, and amongst them in all probability also the successors of Tefnekht and Bakenranf in Saïs, the ancestors of the XXVIth Dynasty.
Although in the year 725 (II Kings xvii. 4) and in 720 (Annals of Sargon), Shabak is called “King of Egypt,” yet in 715 Sargon speaks of the tribute of “Pharaoh, King of Egypt”; in 711 he mentions the same together with the King of Melukhkha (i.e. Cush), and in Sennacherib’s time the “Kings of Egypt” appear together with “the troops of the King of Melukhkha.”
Numerous battles for the possession of the Lower Nile occupied the reigns of Shabak and his successors; it made it impossible for them to take part in the affairs of Asia, no matter how much they desired done.
[ca. 704-672 B.C.]