EGYPT'S PLACE IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY. BOOK I. THE SOURCES AND PRIMEVAL FACTS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY. SECTION I. HISTORICAL TRADITION AND RESEARCH AMONG THE EGYPTIANS. A. THE NATURE AND ANTIQUITY OF EGYPTIAN TRADITION OF THE SACRED BOOKS IN PARTICULAR. I. THE TWO ORIGINAL SOURCES — ANNALS AND LAYS, ACCORDING TO THE GREEKS. HERODOTUS describes the inhabitants of the cultivated portion of Egypt as the best informed or most learned of mankind. In one of his lost works Theophrastus 1 ii. 77. Αὐτῶν δὲ δὴ Αἰγυπτίων οἱ μὲν περὶ τὴν σπειρομένην Αἴγυ πτον οἰκέουσι, μνήμην ἀνθρώπων πάντων ἐπασκέοντες μάλιστα, λογιώτατοί εἰσι μακρῷ τῶν ἐγὼ ἐς διάπειραν ἀπικόμην. The old translation, that they exercise the memory, is quite inadmissible: but even Schweighäuser's interpretation, adopted by Bähr, that they above all other men record past events and exploits, is scarcely accurate. In the whole section (c. 77-91.) no mention is made of their knowledge used the same expression regarding them, and evidently also with reference to the high antiquity of their traditions.2 The reason assigned by Herodotus for so characterising them, is their rigid adherence to these traditions; in other words, the exactness with which they maintained ancient usage and the remembrance of the past. Although there is here no direct allusion to their familiarity with the dates and history of their nation, still it is clear from the whole tenour of the second book, that he had devoted great attention to their historical and chronological tradition, and that even where it appeared to him improbable or barely credible, he yet retails it, as worthy of the serious consideration of his readers. "No Egyptian," he remarks (ii. 82.), “omits taking accurate note of extraordinary or striking events." Manetho observes, in agreement with all the Greek annalists, that the Egyptians possessed uninterrupted descriptions of their kings from Menes downwards. Herodotus (ii. 99. seqq.) was also acquainted with lists of kings kept by the priests, in which the events and monuments of each reign were recorded: from one of these they read to him the names of 330 kings, successors of Menes (ii. 100.). Diodorus enters more into detail as to the nature of these lists or annals of the priests, although his information, as we shall see, is less accurate. "The priests," he says in the introduction to that part of his work which treats of Egyptian History (i. 44.), "had in their sacred books, transmitted from the olden time, and handed down by them to their successors in office, of history, but merely of their manners and customs, which are described as altogether indigenous (with the exception, it may be presumed, of the Maneros-Song). 2 In Porphyry: de Abstin. ii. 5. (p. 106. de Rh.): compare Eusebius, Prop. Ev. 1. 9. τόγε πάντων λογιώτατον γένος. The rest of the passage belongs to Porphyry: but the writings of Theophrastus, which he so repeatedly quotes in that work, clearly contained a contribution to the history of the various religious systems of the old world. See de Rhoer. § 20, 21. ; and Fabric. Bibl. Gr. Theophrastus. 3 written descriptions of all their kings" (from the time of the fabulous monarchs, called heroes, to that of the Ptolemies). "In these an account is given of every king -of his physical powers and disposition, and of the exploits of each in the order of time." Artaxerxes in his expedition through the country, carried off these descriptions from the archives of the Temple'; Bagoas, his lieutenant, afterwards restored them to the priests for a large sum of money. It was in these "descriptions," or at least in works compiled from them, that Theophrastus found his account of an emerald of immense size, which a king of Babylon had on some occasion sent with other objects of great value, as a present to a king of Egypt probably Nechao." The lists of Manetho and Eratosthenes, which have come down to us, profess, and with truth, as their own internal evidence shows, to have been derived from these royal annals. In these annals, as we shall see, were entered the names of each king, together with his stature, the date of his reign, notices of its more remarkable events or prodigies, and doubtless of his lineage, birth, and age. Concurrent with them, according to the same authorities, was another source of historical tradition, namely, songs or lays, which do not 3 'Avaypapai: this is their usual designation. He also calls them. ἱεραὶ ἀναγραφαί; and as he here says αναγραφαὶ ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς βίβλοις, so it is said in another place, ἐν ἱεραῖς βίβλοις ἀναγεγραμμévai πρážɛic: they were therefore not mere lists of names. Zoega quotes these and all the other passages in his work "de Obeliscis," first, in literal extract, and afterwards, in the body of his own text. 4 xvi. 51. Ηνεγκε δὲ καὶ (Artaxerxes) τὰς ἐκ τῶν ἀρχαίων ἱερῶν ἀναγραφής (perhaps τὰς ἐκ τῶν ἀρχείων ἱερέων ἀναγραφάς ?). 5 Theophr. de Lapidibus, p. 692. ed. Schneider: 'H dè oμápaydós ἐστι σπανία, καὶ τὸ μέγεθος οὐ μεγάλη· πλὴν εἰ πιστεύειν ταῖς ἀναγρα φαῖς δεῖ ὑπὲρ τῶν βασιλέων τῶν Αἰγυπτίων· ΝΕΧΑΟΙ γάρ φασι κομι σθῆναί ποτ' ἐν δώροις παρὰ τοῦ Βαβυλωνίων βασιλέως, μῆκος μὲν τετράταῦτα μὲν οὖν ὅτι κατὰ τὴν ἐκείνων γραφήν. (See Commentary, p. 557.) We read since the correction of Turnebus, Evioi yap paσi. The Basle edit. and Cod. Voss. have ** νους. πηχυν seem to have been limited to mere popular ballads, but to have comprised also hymns of a purely sacred or sacerdotal character. "With regard to Sesoōsis," says Diodorus (i. 53.), "not only is there a disagreement among Greek writers, but the priests also, and those who praise him in their songs, vary in their statements."6 Manetho also, in his history of the nineteenth dynasty, according to the extracts of Josephus, to be examined more closely in the sequel, quotes popular legends, which he expressly characterises as such, and the authenticity of which consequently he does not pretend to warrant.7 II. THE ANTIQUITY OF WRITING AMONG THE EGYPTIANS. THE historical tradition of the Egyptians thus appears to be derived from two very different sources-from dry, but accurate records kept by the priests, and from poetical legends. Nor has this fact been overlooked by the modern critical school of philologers, from Heyne downwards. But in their days But in their days it supplied no satisfactory answer to the two great questions which must have suggested themselves to these critics. The first is, whether we are in a position to restore from the remnants of this tradition the purely historical element even of its chronology? The second, whether the Egyptians themselves of the New Empire, which commenced a little before the time of Moses, had rescued any genuine historical knowledge of their primitive ages from the desolation consequent on the Hyksos rule? This Niebuhr doubted, although a firm be 6 ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν κατ ̓ Αἴγυπτον οἵ τε ἱερεῖς καὶ οἱ διὰ τῆς ᾠδῆς αὐτὸν ἐγκωμιάζοντες οὐχ ὁμολογούμενα λέγουσιν. 7 Joseph. c. Apion. 16. and 26. See the Appendix of Authorities. In the first principal passage it is said: ὑπὲρ ὧν ὁ Μανεθὼς οὐκ ἐκ τῶν παρ' Αἰγυπτίοις γραμμάτων, ἀλλ ̓, ὡς αὐτὸς ὡμολόγηκεν, ἐκ τῶν ἀδεσπότως μυθολογουμένων προστέθεικε : in the other, διὰ τοῦ φάναι (Μανεθώνα) γράψειν τὰ μυθευόμενα καὶ λεγόμενα ὑπὲρ τῶν Ἰου δαίων, liever, as his lectures show, in the possibility of restoring the chronology of the New Empire, that is, up to the eighteenth dynasty. Every thing must here ultimately depend upon the antiquity of writing, and the existence and preservation of written records of the Old Empire. It has long been no secret to Egyptologers that the rule of the shepherd kings really marks an intermediate epoch between a new and an old empire. Champollion was clear upon the point that Egyptian tradition could not have been interrupted by that dominion, to the extent commonly supposed, and that monuments of Upper Egypt, dating from that period, are not entirely wanting. It is the more to be lamented that, after the foundation had been secured, so little further advance should have been made in the investigation and analysis of the sources themselves. For it must have been evident that the question of any value attaching either to the Egyptian or Greek traditions, relative to that earlier period, turns upon the pointWhat dependence can be placed on the knowledge which the Egyptians of the New Empire themselves possessed of their most ancient chronology? - for more than this cannot have been transmitted to us. Any specific answer to that question must necessarily depend on a previous thorough analysis of those traditions. It must therefore be reserved for the fourth book, after our readers have accompanied us through all the three empires by the joint aid of tradition and the monuments. Our attention will here be directed to the general evidence of the antiquity and chronological elements of those primary authorities evidence which * Of Niebuhr's lectures, those on the history of Rome have at length, twelve years after his death, been published in London in an English dress by a former pupil of the deceased, Dr. Schmitz, Rector of the High School of Edinburgh. They form the concluding volume of the translation of the historical work. Those on ancient history in general will shortly be published in Germany, by Marcus Niebuhr, the son of the historian. |