Kitabı oku: «The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)», sayfa 9
Sethos was followed by his son Ramses II. (1388-1322 B.C.).215 We learnt from Herodotus that Sesostris had set up pillars in the conquered lands in remembrance of his campaigns: in Syrian Palestine Herodotus had himself seen such pillars, and in Ionia there were two figures of this king hewn in the rock. As a fact a rock half way between Smyrna and Sardis to this day presents a relief of an armed warrior. In style and attitude it is certainly not Egyptian, and therefore cannot have been the work of a Pharaoh. On the other hand, the rocks on the Phenician coast which run into the sea at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, near the ancient Berytus, the modern Beyrout, have Egyptian sculptures upon them. These are three figures of Ramses II. In one he is carrying an enemy into the presence of Ammon. In the two others he is striking down an enemy before the gods Ptah and Ra. Though to a great extent destroyed, the inscriptions still show that the achievements, of which these sculptures are intended to immortalise the memory, belonged to the second and fourth year of Ramses II. His arms had therefore reached the coast of Phenicia, northward of Tyre and Sidon, and he maintained his ground so far or so long, that he could set up this memorial of his victory. In the ruins of a temple built or restored by Ramses at Tanis (San), we find an inscription which ascribes to him the subjugation of the land of Kaft, i. e. of Phenicia, of Nebinai, which is explained to be Cyprus, and lastly of the Upper Retennu, i. e. of eastern Syria.216 Inscriptions on the building of Ramses II. at Karnak, near Medinet Habu (the so-called Ramesseum), and in his rock temple at Abu Simbel in Nubia, inform us that he again fought in Syria in the fifth year of his reign. Eighteen nations, tribes, or cities are mentioned which were opposed to the Egyptians. Here, also, the Cheta, i. e. the Hittites, are first mentioned, then the Karkisa (perhaps the Girgasites),217 Kadeshu (Kades, either Kadesh Barnea in the south, or Kadesh in the north of Canaan), Aratu (Aradus), Chirbu (perhaps Chelbon, Aleppo), Kirkamisha (Karchemish), and Naharina (Mesopotamia). At Kadesh Ramses was victorious and thence he returned to Egypt.218 In the eighth year of his reign he was again in Canaan. He took Maram (Merom), Dapurr (perhaps Debir), in the land of the Amari (Amorites), and Salam,219 and on the walls of the Ramesseum, as also on a large memorial stone in the ruins of Karnak, there is a treaty of the twenty-first year of Ramses II., between "Ramses, the son of the great prince Sethos the brave, the son of the great prince Ramses I." and "Chetasar (i. e., the prince of the Cheta), son of the great prince Maursar the brave, son of the great prince Sepalulu." It is concluded "on good terms for eternal peace and friendship, that this may be a beginning for all eternity according to the intention of the great king of Egypt." After reference to former treaties, the great king of the Cheta pledges himself never to invade Egypt to inflict injury, and a similar promise is made by Ramses. Both kings are to send back those of their subjects who wish to take service with the other. Either is to help the other when attacked by enemies. The treaty is ratified by oaths on either side; and Sutech (Baal) appears as the tutelary god of the Cheta.220
Such is the information we can gain from monuments of the achievements of Ramses II. in Syria. His campaigns in the south appear to have been attended by more important results. Sculptures in the temple at Abu Simbel display the king sitting on his chariot, and leading back as prisoners red figures, which here are probably Nubians, and negroes with ropes round their necks: both tribes have no other garments but the skins of wild animals. In another temple hewn in the rock of the western bank at Beth-el-Walli, a little above Syene, we see Ramses II. standing alone upon his war chariot, rushing with drawn bow on a crowd of negroes, who are armed with very long bows, but clothed only with skins. They fall before the horses of the king. Thus defeated, they fly to their villages, which lie in a valley shadowed by cocoa-palms, in the tops of which apes are climbing. Women and children come forth in distress to meet the fugitives. The prisoners and the booty are brought before the king, chieftains in fetters, and negroes carrying elephants' tusks and ebony; others lead lions, panthers, antelopes, gazelles, ostriches, and a giraffe, the animal of Central Africa.221 Besides this Ramses II. founded the furthest monument of Egyptian dominion up the stream of the Nile, so that he must have ruled further to the south than his father Sethos. Beyond Soleb, under the steep spur of Mount Barkal, 400 miles or more above Syene, lie the ruins of a temple which Ramses built in honour of Ammon.222 Symbolical representations of the temple already mentioned at Abu Simbel on the right and left of the entrance collect all the victories which Ramses won. Before the god Ammon, who hands to the king the scythe of battle, Ramses is brandishing his club upon a crowd of kneeling enemies, whom he has seized by the forelock. Among these are three negroes, three red and beardless men, and four forms which are yellow and bearded. Ammon speaks thus: "I give thee the scythe, slay with it; I give thee the south for subjection, and the north for conquest, and to put to flight all the tribes of the perverse nations, and to extend the fabric of thy dominion to the pillars of the sky."223
On this evidence we find that the narratives of the Greeks of the deeds of Sesostris, with whom tradition has amalgamated Sethos and Ramses II., and also Manetho's account of the exploits of Ramses, and what the priest read about them to Germanicus at Thebes, are all violent exaggerations. Of the battles in the north-east and in Asia, we find in the inscriptions only the battles fought by Sethos against the shepherds, between Egypt and Syria, against the Schasu, against the Hittites, against the Retennu, and finally a campaign to Mesopotamia, or at least battles against princes of the Euphrates. Of Ramses II. we find that he forced his way as far as Berytus in Syria, and fought against Syrian tribes and cities, with whom Karchemish on the Euphrates, and other princes of the Euphrates (Naharina) are said to have been united. Even as early as Tuthmosis I. and III., and Amenophis III., the inscriptions mention campaigns to Mesopotamia. They tell us that Tuthmosis III. forced his way into the interior of Mesopotamia, and enumerate the regions which he compelled to pay tribute. With regard to Ramses II. the monuments prove no more than that he temporarily reduced Syria, including the Phenician cities and the island of Cyprus, which was probably already dependent upon them. The subsequent battles and the treaty of Ramses II. with the Cheta, prove how slight were the successes so highly extolled in the inscriptions. If the Hittites were never reduced to obedience, all the more distant campaigns into Syria, and all attempts against Mesopotamia had only a momentary result, and could hardly have been more than mere raids. In the inscriptions, every Pharaoh, from Amosis onward, is found fighting against the same nations, the Schasu, the Cheta, the Retennu, the Punt, the Cushites, &c., and each time we are assured that the "eight" or "nine nations," "the lands of the north and south," the earth from one end to the other has been subdued. It is by no means remarkable that the recollections of the campaigns of the third Tuthmothis and Amenophis, of the achievements of Sethos, and of Ramses II. and of Ramses III., of which we have still to speak, supported as they were by the flattery and exaggeration of the inscriptions, should combine in the tradition of the Egyptians into a monarch who subdued the whole earth, of whom certain accounts and these, as Diodorus says, by no means accordant, passed to the Greeks. And Diodorus observes expressly that these contradictions were not due to the Greeks, but to the Egyptian priests and those who sang of the exploits of Sesostris.
As we have seen, this tradition lays especial weight on the achievements of Sesostris in Ethiopia, in the Red Sea, and in Arabia. Herodotus tells us that the priests assured him that the king – at first sailing with ships of war out of the Arabian Gulf – had subjugated the inhabitants of the Red Sea. He was, they said, the only king who had ruled at once over Egypt and Ethiopia. In Diodorus we find that he first reduces the whole of Arabia, which had never before been conquered, and the greater part of Libya, and the Ethiopians in the south of Egypt. Afterwards he – first of the Egyptians – built ships of war, and sent them into the Red Sea, and with these reduced all the coasts and islands as far as India. In Strabo Sesostris first marches against Ethiopia, forces his way as far as the land of Cinnamon, then crosses the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, reduces Arabia, and commences the digging of a canal from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf. The monuments confirm the statement that Sethos fought with the Punt, i. e. the Arabs, that he pushed farther than his predecessors into the territory of the negroes, and that Ramses II. (in whose reign the monuments mention governors of Ethiopia)224 established a lasting supremacy as far as Mount Barkal.
Thus it is established that the dominion of Egypt under Ramses II. extended beyond Nubia and Dongola, and reached the territory of the negroes, while at the same time the tribes of the Arabian peninsula may have been to a great extent reduced to pay tribute; and from this we may draw the conclusion that the attention of Sethos and Ramses was mainly directed to these regions. The products which they could obtain by tribute or by trade with these tribes – slaves, gold, ebony, ivory, frankincense, spices, gum – were of great value for Egypt, and ships of war were needed both to keep in submission the tribes which may have been subjugated on the coasts of Arabia, and to maintain the trading stations settled on the east coast of Africa. For the fleet of Ramses Herodotus refers to the evidence of the priests. Such a fleet is, as a fact, exhibited on the monuments of Ramses III., and the tradition of the Hebrews tells us of trading ships which, about the year 1000 B.C., sailed from Elath out of the Arabian Sea, and reached the mouth of the Indus, no doubt on routes the Egyptian trade had already laid down to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and the southern coast of Arabia. In connection with these efforts, directed towards the establishment of trade and authority on the Arabian Sea, it seems intelligible that Sethos and his son Ramses should have entertained the idea of establishing a water communication between the Nile and this sea, and should have actually commenced the work. Remains of a canal, beginning on the Nile at Bubastis, above the city, ran through the valley of Tumilat, a depression of the Arabian hills towards the east, in the direction of the Lake of Crocodiles and the Bitter Lakes. On these remains at Tel-el-Kebir and Abu Kesheb are the ruins of Egyptian buildings. At the second place an image of Ramses II. has been found, worshipping Tum and Ammon. We may assume that the ruins at Tel-el-Kebir are those of the city of Pithom (Patumos, pa-tum, i. e. habitation of Tum), which we learn from Herodotus lay on this canal, and those at Abu Kesheb are the ruins of the city of Ramses (pa-rameses), names preserved to us in the tradition of the Hebrews, and that Sethos and Ramses II. had built both these cities.225 The Hebrews, whose forefathers had broken off from the Edomites, the settlers on Mount Seir, which runs from the north-east point of the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and pastured their flocks on the Pelusiac arm of the Nile under Egyptian protection, have a tradition that it was they who were compelled to build Pithom and Ramses for the Pharaoh. The canal remained unfinished; at that time it apparently reached only to the Lake of Crocodile. Seven hundred years later Necho carried it as far as the Bitter Lakes; it was finished by King Darius and the Ptolemies, who completed what the Pharaohs were unable to carry out.
The tradition of the mighty deeds of Sesostris in Asia contradicts itself in the most glaring manner, inasmuch as it likewise tells us that he dug a number of canals from Memphis downwards to the sea, in order to fortify the land and make the approach difficult for enemies. The eastern side of Egypt also he fortified against the inroads of Arabians and Syrians, by building a wall of about 1,500 stades long through the desert from Pelusium to Heliopolis. And the inscriptions on the building of Sethos at Karnak are believed to tell us that this prince had erected "the double walls against the lands of the impure."226 No line of fortification was required against the nomads on the eastern border, if these were sufficiently held in check by the Egyptian arms, or had been thoroughly subjugated. This great fortification which passed beyond the protecting arm of the Nile from Bubastis in a slanting direction through the desert, from the sea to Heliopolis, along a line of about 1,500 stades, may very likely have been connected with the making of the canal. The trade on the canal would be protected against predatory attacks, and the territory rescued from the desert by its construction, and the cities adjacent would be protected. The city which Ramses built on the canal and named by his own name apparently belonged to those fortifications. It was a border fortress against the desert and the attacks of Syrian tribes.
Of Menephta, i. e. beloved of Ptah (1322-1302 B.C.), the son and successor of Ramses II., Josephus, following Manetho, gives us the following account: – "Like Horus, who had been king before him, Menephta desired to see the gods. This wish he confided to a wise prophet, the son of Papius. The prophet told him that he would see the gods if he cleared the whole land of leprous and unclean persons. Then the king collected out of Egypt all who were diseased in their bodies, to the number of 80,000, and threw them into the stone quarries east of the Nile, that they might labour there along with the other Egyptians condemned to similar toil. But as among the diseased persons were certain men of learning and priests who had been attacked by leprosy, the son of Papius feared the anger of the gods would descend upon himself and the king if holy men were forced into slavish tasks, and he foresaw that others would come to the aid of these impure persons, and rule over Egypt for thirteen years. He did not venture to tell this to the king, but wrote it down, and then put an end to his own life. Filled with anxiety, when the lepers had suffered long enough in the stone quarries, the king gave them Avaris, the city abandoned by the shepherds, as a refuge and protection. But according to the old mythology this city belonged to Typho. When the unclean persons came to Avaris, and were in possession of a centre to support any disaffection, they chose Osarsiph, one of the priests at Heliopolis, as their leader, and swore to obey him in everything. The first law he gave them was to offer prayer to no god, and to abstain from no animal held sacred in Egypt, but to sacrifice them all and eat them, and to hold communion with none but those who had taken the oath. After giving these and many other laws, diametrically opposed to the Egyptian customs, Osarsiph bade them fortify the city, and arm themselves against Menephta, while he took counsel with certain priests and infected persons, and sent an embassy to Jerusalem, to the shepherds driven out by Tuthmosis. He told them what an outrage had been done to him and his associates, and called on them to march against Egypt with the same intentions as himself. Avaris, the city of their forefathers, would first open its gates to them and give freely whatever they needed, and whenever necessary he would fight at their head and easily subdue the land for them. Delighted at the message, the shepherds all set out with eagerness, about 200,000 strong, and were soon in Avaris. When Menephta heard of their approach, he was seized with alarm, for he bethought him of the prophecy of the son of Papius. It is true he gathered together about 300,000 of the flower of the Egyptian army, but when the enemy met him, he would not join battle, fearing to fight against the gods. After taking counsel with his officers, he gave orders for the sacred animals, which were held in especial honour, to be brought to him, and bade the priests secure the images of the gods with the greatest care; and when he had placed his son Sethos, now five years old, in security with a friend, he turned back to Memphis. Then he took Apis and the other sacred animals, which the priests had brought to Memphis, with him, and retired with his army and the bulk of the Egyptians to Ethiopia. The king of Ethiopia, who was under a debt of gratitude to Menephta, received him and the multitude with him, provided for the Egyptians, and allotted them cities and villages sufficient to support them for the thirteen years, and caused the Ethiopian army to keep watch on the borders of Egypt. But the men of Jerusalem and the unclean invaded Egypt, and displayed such impious rage against the Egyptians, that to those who witnessed their wickedness their dominion seemed the worst of all. They were not content with burning cities and villages, with plundering the sanctuaries, and destroying the images of the gods, they even compelled the priests and prophets to sacrifice and strangle the sacred animals, and then they thrust them naked out of the temples, and ate the animals if at all good for food. But in time Menephta returned with a great host from Ethiopia, and his son Ramses also with an army. Both attacked the unclean and the shepherds, and overcame them. Many they slew, and the rest they pursued as far as the borders of Syria. It is said that the priest who gave them their constitution and laws, a native of Heliopolis, and called Osarsiph, from Osiris, the god worshipped there, changed his name from Osarsiph to Moses."227
From the tradition of the Hebrews we learn that their ancestors, after pasturing their flocks for a long time, under Egyptian protection, on the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, in the land of Goshen, became weary of the task-work imposed upon them, and set forth out of Egypt, in order to feed their flocks in freedom in the peninsula of Sinai, to the east of the Dead Sea. The oppression of these shepherds by Egypt may, of course, be connected with the fortification of the border towards Syria, the construction of the canal, and the erection of the cities for trade, and the border fortresses on this canal. Accordingly there seems no reason to contest the tradition of the Egyptians that the exodus of the Hebrews took place under Menephta. That the Egyptian tradition regards these Hebrews as leprous and unclean Egyptians is of no importance. The cession of Avaris and invitation of the Hyksos is mere imagination, arising from the somewhat analogous event of former times. The most improbable fact is the voluntary departure of Menephta to the allied king of the Ethiopians, and the abandonment of Egypt without a struggle to her fiercest foe. Under Ramses II., as we have seen, Ethiopia, as far as Mount Barkal, became an Egyptian province. Far more credible is the tradition of the Hebrews that the army of the Pharaoh met with a heavy reverse in the attempt to check the exodus of the Hebrews, and their union with the hostile tribes of the desert. It is possible that, in consequence of this disaster, a king was set up in opposition to Menephta, and that Menephta retired before him to Ethiopia, from whence he afterwards recovered Egypt. In the excerpt of Eusebius we find, after the name Menephta, a king Amenemes, and on the monuments Amenemessu, whose shields, though chiselled out, can still be recognised.228
Of all these things the monuments of Menephta know nothing. On the contrary, a long inscription in the small court, on the southern wall of the temple at Karnak, tells us of a victory which Menephta had obtained over the Libyan tribes. These are the Lubu (Libyans), Maschawascha (who may be explained as the Maxyans, a tribe which, as Herodotus tells us, dwelt near Lake Triton, on the north coast of Africa), the Kesak, and from the "regions on the sea," the Tuirscha, Sakalascha, Schardaina, Akaiwascha, and Leku. They had crossed the western border and forced their way, not into the land only, but down to the river, and had pitched their camp in the territory of the city Paali. The king was obliged to protect the city of Tum and the sanctuary of Ptah Tatamen (perhaps Memphis). On the first of Epiphi – the year of the reign of Menephta was not given, or at any rate is not found now – a battle took place. Of the Lubu 6,359 were slain; of hands belonging to the Sakalascha 250 were counted, and 790 belonging to the Tuirscha. Fourteen pairs of horses were taken, belonging to the chief of the Leku and his sons, and 9,111 swords of the Maschawascha.229
Menephta was succeeded by Sethos II. and Menephta II. Then followed Ramses III. (1269-1244 B.C.). The warlike exploits which this king has commemorated on his temple at Medinet Habu appear from the inscriptions to have been hardly inferior to those of Sethos I. and Ramses II. In the reliefs of this temple is seen an Egyptian fleet and the engagement with the ships of the enemy. On a picture on a wall are collected all the campaigns of the king; the chiefs of the conquered tribes are represented by fourteen figures, and the accompanying hieroglyphics give us the names of their tribes. Two of these names are destroyed, and a third is illegible. The first figure is the chief of the "evil land of Cush." Two of the figures are negroes, and their tribes are mentioned. Then follow the lord "of the hostile Schasu," i. e. the shepherds of the Syrian border, the "evil chief of the Cheta," against whom the inscription observes that he was taken alive, the "evil chief of the Amari" (Amorites), the sovereign of the Lubu (Libyans), the sovereign of the Maschawascha, the coast-land Tuirscha, the coast-land Schardaina, and the "lord of the hostile Zakkarj."230 The first Menephta, as we have seen, had been compelled to fight against the Lubu, Maschawascha, Tuirscha, and Schardaina. The remaining figures prove that Ramses III. carried on war on the Upper Nile against the Nubians and Negro tribes, and in the north-east he had to contend with the Schasu, i. e. the descendants of the Hyksos, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the old enemies against whom his forefathers took the field. To these the Pulista, i. e. the Philistines, who are here mentioned for the first time, are added in a list of the nations reduced by the king in the eighth and ninth years of his reign, inscribed on the right wing of the gateway which leads into the second court of the temple. In the second court four pictures represent the achievements of the king in the fifth year of his reign against the Lubu (Libyans), and ten pictures on the outer side of the north wall give the achievements of the eighth and ninth years. First there is a great slaughter of the Temhu, apparently the general name under which the Egyptians comprehended the Libyan tribes. The enumeration of hands and members gives a total of 12,535 for each, and the scribe on the picture is taking this down. On the eighth picture the Egyptian ships, with beaks ending in lions' heads, and mastheads manned by archers, are manœuvring with sails and oars to thrust the enemy's ships upon the shore, on which is drawn up the Egyptian army with arrows also directed against the hostile ships. The inscriptions tell us that these are the ships of the Zakkarj. At a fortress over which is written Magadil (Migdol?) the captive Zakkarj are brought before the king. This is on the ninth picture; on the tenth the king celebrates his return to Thebes.231
Ramses III. was followed by eleven kings of the same name (1244-1091 B.C.). But the days of warlike expeditions were over. The inscriptions which have come down to us from these rulers only prove that their sovereignty was maintained over Nubia, and tell us of certain buildings which these princes also erected at Memphis.232 Of Ramses XII. a memorial stone found in the temple of the moon-god Chunsu at Karnak – a deity to whom the house of Ramses paid especial honour – informs us that he elevated the daughter of the lord of the land of Buchten (or Bachtan) to be Queen of Egypt. When afterwards another daughter of the chief fell ill, he besought the king of Egypt for a wise man to cure her. The priest, whom Ramses sent, found the king's daughter possessed by a spirit, but he was too weak to contend with it. Then the chief of Buchten besought Ramses to send him a god to overcome the spirit. And Ramses sent the image of the god Chunsu from the temple at Thebes in a large boat, accompanied by five small boats and a chariot. The spirit gave way before the god, and the chieftain was in great joy, and refused to allow the god to return to Egypt, until in a dream he saw a golden hawk, which spread out its wings to fly to Egypt. On awaking he found himself seized by an illness. So he allowed the god to return to Egypt after he had kept him three years and nine months, and gave him many rich presents for the journey.233
