![The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/4/2/6/the-historians-history-of-the-world-01-prolegomena-egypt-mesopotamia-download.jpg)
The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]». Краткое содержание книги:
Uah-ab-Ra undertook to subdue the Greek colony of Cyrene, and, as it would not have been prudent to oppose his Greek auxiliaries to a people of the same race, he employed only native troops on this expedition, which was an unfortunate one. The Egyptian soldiers, believing he had undertaken it solely in order to get rid of them, revolted. To appease them, Uah-ab-Ra sent an officer named Aahmes, whose good nature pleased the soldiers. As he was speaking to them, one of them put a helmet on his head, and there was a cry that they ought to make him their king. He did not wait to be persuaded, and immediately put himself at the head of the rebels.
Uah-ab-Ra, learning this, gave orders to one of those who remained faithful to him to bring Aahmes to him, dead or alive. The envoy received only a very coarse answer, and when he returned, the king had his nose and ears cut off. The indignant Egyptians instantly went over to Aahmes. Uah-ab-Ra at the head of his Carian and Ionian mercenaries, to the number of thirty thousand, marched against the rebels, who were far more numerous. He was beaten and led back, a prisoner, into the palace which had been his. Aahmes at first treated him with consideration, but the Egyptians insisted that he should be delivered up to them, and strangled. He had reigned twenty years. Aahmes had him buried in the tomb of his ancestors, and espoused a daughter of Psamthek II in order to graft himself on the Saïtic Dynasty.
[572-525 B.C.]
Aahmes II, though he had become king by a reaction of the national party against the foreigner, nevertheless showed himself still more favourable to the Greeks than his predecessors had been. He permitted them to establish themselves at Naucratis, on the Canopic branch of the Nile, and to raise temples to their gods. One of these temples, the Hellenion, was built at the public expense by the principal Greek towns in Asia. Particular temples were consecrated to Apollo by the Milesians, to Hera by the Samians, and to Zeus by the Æginians. Aahmes sent his statue to several towns in Greece, and when the temple of Delphi was destroyed by fire, he desired to contribute to the subscription opened for its reconstruction, and offered a talent of alum from Egypt. He entered into an alliance with the Cyrenæans, and married one of the daughters of the country; he also allied himself with Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, and with Crœsus, king of the Lydians. He made no war except against the Cypriotes, whom he subjected to a tribute. He chiefly occupied himself, as Psamthek had done, in developing the trade of Egypt. Like him he erected monuments at Saïs and Memphis, which are no longer in existence, but of which Herodotus speaks with admiration. There is at the Louvre a monolithic chapel in pink granite, which dates from the reign of Aahmes, and the British Museum possesses the sarcophagus of one of his wives, Queen Ankhnes, who long resided at Thebes. It is believed that the hypogees of Assassif, near Gurnah, belong to the Saïtic epoch. There is one of them which, in extent and richness, yields to none of the tombs of Biban-el-Moluk. This is the tomb of a high priest who was at the same time a royal functionary.
Aahmes was nothing more than a soldier of fortune, and it appears that the ceremonious etiquette of the ancient kings of Egypt wearied him. When he had employed his morning in administering justice, he passed the rest of the time at table with his friends. Certain courtiers represented to him that he was compromising his dignity. He answered that a bow-string could not always be stretched. At the beginning of his reign the obscurity of his birth made him despised. Perceiving this, he had melted a gold basin, in which he used to wash his feet, made from it the golden statue of a god and offered it to the public veneration.
“Thus it was with me,” he said; “I was a plebeian, now I am your king; render me, then, the honour and respect which are due me.” The people understood the allegory, and ended by becoming attached to this sensible man, who took his trade of king seriously. It was from him, according to Herodotus, that the Athenians borrowed their famous law against idleness.
“He ordered each Egyptian to declare to the nomarch, every year, what were his means of subsistence. He who did not comply with the law, or could not prove that he lived by honest means, was punished with death. Solon, the Athenian, borrowed this law from Egypt, and established it in Athens, where it is still in force, because it is a wise one and no fault can be found with it.”
Herodotus says that Egypt was never happier or more flourishing than in the reign of Aahmes, and that there were then in that country twenty thousand well-peopled towns or villages.
All this prosperity was to disappear in one day, for Egypt was about to founder like Nineveh and Jerusalem and Sardis and Babylon, without previous decay, in one of those sudden and overwhelming storms which sweep monarchies away.
A new empire had just arisen in Asia. Persia had absorbed Media and subdued Chaldea and Asia Minor. Lydia had succumbed so quickly that Aahmes had not been able to succour his ally, Crœsus. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, left Egypt in peace, and she took good care not to stir; but his son Cambyses felt the need of aggrandising his states, and as in default of reasons wars never lack pretexts, here is the one he gave, or which was perhaps invented as an afterthought.
It was said that Cyrus had asked Aahmes to send him the best physician for diseases of the eye, to be found in his dominion. This physician wished to avenge himself on the king of Egypt, who had torn him from the arms of his wife and children to send him into Persia. He persuaded Cambyses to demand the daughter of Aahmes, counting on a refusal, which would not fail to be considered as an insult. Aahmes knew well that Cambyses would not make his daughter a queen, but a slave of the harem; he sent a daughter of Uah-ab-Ra. The latter disclosed the ruse to the king of Persia, and demanded of him to avenge her father, whose murderer Aahmes had been. Cambyses flew into a violent rage and resolved to carry war into Egypt.
A desert that an army could not cross in less than three days’ march protected Egypt on the side of Asia. Following the advice of Phanes, a Greek officer and deserter from the Egyptian army, Cambyses secured for himself the alliance of the Arab king, who stationed camels laden with skins full of water, all along the route the Persians were to follow. The town of Pelusium, which was the key of Egypt, was besieged by Cambyses. Polyænus relates that he caused dogs, cats, and ibises to be collected, and placed them in front of his army; the Egyptians dared not fly their arrows for fear of hitting the sacred animals, and the town was taken without resistance. Aahmes had just died, after a reign of forty-four years (528). His son, Psamthek III, the Psammenitus of Herodotus, came to meet the enemy. The Greek and Carian mercenaries in the pay of the king of Egypt, learning the treason of Phanes, their former chief, revenged themselves on his children.
“They led them into the camp,” says Herodotus, “and, having placed a mixing bowl between the two armies, they cut their throats under the eyes of their father, mingled their blood with wine and water in the bowl, and, when all the auxiliaries had drunk, rushed into battle.”
It was fierce and bloody; many perished on either side; but at last the Egyptians had the worst of it and fled in disorder to Memphis. Cambyses summoned the town to surrender; the crowd destroyed the Mytilenean vessel which carried the ambassadors, massacred those who manned it, and dragged their limbs through the citadel. The town was taken, and Psamthek brought before the conqueror. He had reigned only six months.
THE ATROCITIES OF CAMBYSES
[525 B.C.]
Cambyses treated him with the utmost severity, and had him led before the town, together with some other Egyptians.
“The king’s daughter,” says Herodotus, “was clad as a slave and sent, pitcher in hand, in search of water, with several other young girls of rank. They passed, weeping, in front of their captive fathers, who groaned at their humiliation. Psammenitus [Psamthek III] saw them and lowered his eyes towards the earth. Then Cambyses caused his son and two thousand young men of the same age to pass before him, with cords round their necks and bridles in their mouths. They were being led to death to avenge the Mytileneans slain at Memphis, for the royal judges had ordained that, for every man killed on that occasion, ten Egyptians of the first families should be put to death. Psammenitus saw them pass and recognised his son; but while the other Egyptians round him wept and lamented themselves, he preserved the same countenance as at the sight of his daughter. When the young men had passed, he perceived an old man who generally ate at his table. This man, despoiled of his goods, and reduced to live on charity, was imploring pity from the soldiers and even from Psammenitus and the Egyptian captives brought into the outskirts of the town. Psammenitus could not restrain his tears; he beat himself on the head and called to his friend. Three guards, deputed to watch him, made this known to Cambyses. He was astonished and sent a messenger to Psammenitus, who questioned him thus: