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While thus the first Chaldean Empire was being established, Egypt, separated from her confines only by a narrow isthmus, loomed on the horizon, and appeared to beckon to her rival. But she had strangely declined from her former greatness, and had been attacked and subdued by invaders appearing like a cloud of locusts on the banks of the Nile, to whom was applied the name Hiq Shausu, from which the Greeks derived the term Hyksos for this people. Modern scholars have put forward many conflicting hypotheses as to the identity of this race of conquerors. The monuments represent them with the Mongoloid type of feature. The problem remains unsolved, and the origin of the Hyksos is as mysterious as ever.

About this time took place that entrance into Egypt of the Beni-Isræl, or Isrælites, which has since acquired a unique position in the world's history. A comparatively ancient tradition relates that the Hebrews arrived in Egypt during the reign of Aphobis, a Hyksos king, doubtless one of the Apopi. The Hyksos were ousted by a hero named Ahmosis after a war of five years. The XVIIIth Dynasty was inaugurated by the Pharaohs, whose policy was so aggressive that Egypt, attacked by enemies from various quarters, and roused, as it were, to warlike frenzy, hurled her armies across all her frontiers simultaneously, and her sudden appearance in the heart of Syria gave a new turn to human history. The isolation of the kingdoms of the ancient world was at an end; and the conflict of the nations was about to begin.

II.--Beginning of the Egyptian Conquest

The Egyptians had no need to anticipate Chaldæan interference when, forsaking their ancient traditions, they penetrated for the first time into the heart of Syria. Babylonian rule ceased to exercise direct control when the line of sovereigns who had introduced it disappeared. When Ammisatana died, about the year 2099 B.C., the dynasty of Khammurabi became extinct, and kings of the semi-barbarous Cossæan race gained the throne which had been occupied since the days of Khammurabi by Chaldæans of the ancient stock.

The Cossæan king who seized on Babylon was named Gandish. He and his tribe came from the mountainous regions of Zagros, on the borders of Media. The Cossæan rule over the countries of the Euphrates was doubtless similar in its beginnings to that which the Hyksos exercised at first over the nomes of Egypt. The Cossæan kings did not merely bring with them their army, but their whole nation, who spread over the whole land. As in the case of the Hyksos, the barbarian conquerors thus became merged in the more civilised people which they had subdued. But the successors of Gandish were unable permanently to retain their ascendancy over all the districts and provinces, and several of these withdrew their allegiance. Thus in Syria the authority of Babylon was no longer supreme when the encroachments of Egypt began, and when Thutmosis entered the region the native levies which he encountered were by no means formidable.

The whole country consisted of a collection of petty states, a complex group of peoples and territories which the Egyptians themselves never completely succeeded in disentangling. We are, however, able to distinguish at the present time several of these groups, all belonging to the same family, but possessing different characteristics--the kinsfolk of the Hebrews, the children of Ishmæl and Edom, the Moabites and Ammonites, the Arameans, the Khati and the Canaanites. The Canaanites were the most numerous, and had they been able to confederate under a single king, it would have been impossible for the Egyptians to have broken through the barrier thus raised between them and the rest of Asia.

III.--The Eighteenth Theban Dynasty

The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thutmosis I. in Asia, a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting if we could lay our hands on it. We know that this king succeeded in reaching on his first campaign a limit which none of his successors was able to surpass. The results of the campaign were of a decisive character, for Southern Syria accepted its defeat, and Gaza was garrisoned as the secure door of Asia for future invasions. Freed from anxiety in this quarter, Pharaoh gave his whole time to the consolidation of his power in Ethiopia, where rebellion had become rife. Subduing this southern region and thus extending the supremacy of Egypt in the regions of the upper Nile, Thutmosis was able to end his days in the enjoyment of profound peace. Thutmosis II. did not long survive him. His chief wife, Queen Hatshopsitu, reigned for many years with great ability while the new Pharaoh, Thutmosis III., was still a youth.

After the death of Hatshopsitu, the young Pharaoh set out with his army. It was at the beginning of the twenty-fourth year of his reign that he reached Gaza. Marching forward he reached the spurs of Mount Carmel and won a decisive victory at Megiddo over the allied Syrian princes. The inscriptions at Karnak contain long lists of the titles of the king's Syrian subjects. The Pharaoh had now no inclination to lay down his arms, and we have a record of twelve military expeditions of this king. When the Syrian conquest had been effected, Egypt gave permanency to its results by means of a series of international decrees, which established the constitution of her empire, and brought about her concerted action with the Asiatic powers. She had already occupied an important position among them when Thutmosis III. died in the fifty-fifth year of his reign.