 The history of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2, by Gaston Maspero. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Section 1 of History of Egypt, Volume 2, by Gaston Maspero. Chapter 1. The Political Constitution of Egypt, Part 1. Between the Phaeum and the Apex of the Delta, the Libyan range expands and forms a vast and slightly undulating table-land, which runs parallel to the Nile for nearly thirty leagues. The great Sphinx Harmakas has mounted guard over its northern extremity ever since the time of the followers of Horus. Hewn out of solid rock at the extreme margin of the mountain plateau, he seems to raise his head in order that he may be the first to behold across the valley the rising of his father the son. Only the general outline of the lion can now be traced in his weather-worn body. The lower portion of the headdress has fallen, so that the neck appears too slender to support the weight of the head. The cannon shot of the fanatical Mamalux has injured both the nose and beard, and the red coloring which gave animation to his features has now almost entirely disappeared. But in spite of this, even in its decay, it still bears a commanding expression of strength and dignity. The eyes look into the far-off distance with an intensity of deep thought. The lips still smile. The whole face is pervaded with calmness and power. The art that could conceive and hue this gigantic statue out of the mountainside was an art in its maturity, master of itself and sure of its effects. How many centuries were needed to bring it to this degree of development and perfection? In later times a chapel of alabaster and rose granite was erected alongside the god. Temples were built here and there in the more accessible places, and round these were grouped the tombs of the whole country. The bodies of the common people, usually naked and uncoffinned, were thrust under the sand at a depth of barely three feet from the surface. Those of a better class rested in mean rectangular chambers hastily built of yellow bricks and roofed with pointed vaultings. No ornaments or treasures gladdened the deceased in his miserable resting-place. A few vessels, however, of coarse pottery, contained the provisions left to nourish him during the period of his second existence. Some of the wealthy class had their tombs cut out of the mountainside, but the majority preferred an isolated tomb, a mastaba, comprising a chapel above ground, a shaft, and sub-subterranean vaults. From a distance these chapels have the appearance of truncated pyramids, varying in size according to the fortune or taste of the owner. There are some which measure thirty to forty feet in height, with a façade one hundred and sixty feet long, and a depth from back to front of some eighty feet, while others attain only a height of some ten feet upon a base of sixteen feet square. The walls slope uniformly towards one another, and usually have a smooth surface. However, their courses are set back one above the other almost like steps. The brick mastabas were carefully cemented externally, and the layers bound together internally by fine sand poured into the interstices. Stone mastabas, on the contrary, present a regularity in the decoration of their facings alone. In nine cases out of ten the core is built of rough stone blocks, rudely cut into squares, cemented with gravel and dried mud, or thrown together pell-mell without mortar of any kind. The whole building should have been oriented according to rule, the four sides to the four cardinal points, the greatest axis directed north and south, but the mason seldom troubled themselves to find the true north, and the orientation is usually incorrect. The doors face east, sometimes north or south, but never west. One of these is but the semblance of a door, a high, narrow niche contrived so as to face east, and decorated with grooves framing a carefully walled-up entrance. This was for the use of the dead, and it was believed that the ghost entered or left it at will. The door for the use of the living, sometimes preceded by a portico, was almost always characterized by great simplicity. Over it is a cylindrical tympanum, or a smooth flagstone bearing sometimes merely the name of the dead person, sometimes his titles and descent, sometimes a prayer for his welfare, and an enumeration of the days during which he was entitled to receive the worship due to ancestors. They invoked on his behalf, and almost always precisely in the same words, the great God, the Osiris of Mendes, or else Anubis, dwelling in the Divine Palace, that burial might be granted to him in Amintit, the land of the west, the very great and very good, to him the vassal of the great God, that he might walk in the ways in which it is good to walk, he the vassal of the great God, that he might have offerings of bread, cakes and drink, at the New Year's feast, at the feast of thought, on the first day of the year, on the feast of Ugeit, at the great fire festival, at the procession of the God-menu, at the feast of offerings, at the monthly and half-monthly festivals, and every day. The chapel is usually small, and is almost lost in the great extent of the building. It generally consists merely of an oblong chamber, approached by a rather short passage. At the far end, and set back into the western wall, is a huge quadrangular stele, at the foot of which is seen the table of offerings, made of alabaster, granite, or limestone, placed flat upon the ground, and sometimes two little obelisks or two altars, hollowed at the top to receive the gifts mentioned in the inscription on the exterior of the tomb. The general appearance is that of a rather low, narrow doorway, too small to be a practicable entrance. The recess thus formed is almost always left empty, sometimes, however, the piety of relatives placed within it a statue of the deceased. Standing there, with soldiers thrown back, head erect, and smiling face, the statue seems to step forth to lead the double from its dark lodging where it lies embalmed, to those glowing planes where he dwelt in freedom during his earthly life. Another moment, crossing the threshold, he must descend the few steps leading into the public hall. On festivals and days of offerings, when the priest and family presented the banquet with the customary rites, this great painted figure, in the act of advancing, and seen by the light of flickering torches or smoking lamps, might well appear endued with life. It was as if the dead ancestor himself stepped out of the wall and mysteriously stood before its descendants to claim their homage. The inscription on the lintel repeats once more the name and rank of the dead. Faithful portraits of him and of other members of his family figure in the ba-reliefs on the doorposts. The little scene at the far end represents him seated tranquilly at table, with the details of the feast carefully recorded at his side, from the moment when water is brought to him for ablution to that when, all culinary skill being exhausted, he has but to return to his dwelling in a state of beatified satisfaction. The stelae represented to the visitor the door leading to the private apartments of the dead, the fact of its being walled up for ever showing that no living mortal might cross its threshold. The inscription which covered its surface was not a mere epitaph informing future generations who it was that reposed beneath. They perpetuated the name and genealogy of the deceased, and gave him a civil status without which he could not have preserved his personality in the world beyond. The nameless dead, like a living man without a name, was reckoned as non-existing. Nor was this the only use of the stelae. The pictures and prayers inscribed upon it acted as so many talismans for ensuring the continuous existence of the ancestor, whose memory they were called. They compelled the god therein invoked, whether Osiris or the Jackal Anubis, to act as mediator between the living and the departed. They granted to the god the enjoyment of sacrifices and those good things abundantly offered to the deities, and by which they live, on condition that a share of them might first be set aside for the deceased. By the divine favour the soul or rather the doubles of the bread, meat, and beverages passed into the other world, and there refreshed the human double. It was not, however, necessary that the offerings should have a material existence in order to be effective. The first-comer who should repeat aloud the name and the formulas inscribed upon the stone, secured for the unknown occupant, by this means alone, the immediate possession of all the things which he enumerated. The stelae constitutes the essential part of the chapel and tomb. In many cases it was the only inscribed portion, it alone being necessary to ensure the identity and continuous existence of the dead man. Often, however, the sides of the chamber and passage were not left bare. When time were the wealth of the owner permitted, they were covered with scenes and writing, expressing at greater length the ideas summarized by the figures and inscriptions of the stelae. Neither pictorial effect nor the caprice of the moment was permitted to guide the artist in the choice of his subjects. All that he drew, pictures or words, had a magical purpose. Every individual who built for himself an eternal house, either attached to it a staff of priests of the double, of inspectors, scribes, slaves, or else made an agreement with the priests of a neighboring temple to serve the chapel in perpetuity. Lands taken from his patrimony, which thus became the dominions of the eternal house, rewarded them for their trouble, and supplied them with meats, vegetables, fruits, liquors, linen, and vessels for sacrifice. In theory these liturgies were perpetuated from year to year, until the end of time, but in practice, after three or four generations, the older ancestors were forsaken for those who had died more recently. Notwithstanding the implications and threats of the donor against the priests who should neglect their duty, or against those who should usurp the funeral endowments, sooner or later there came a time when, forsaken by all, the double was in danger of perishing for want of sustenance. In order to ensure that the promised gifts offered in substance on the day of burial should be maintained throughout the centuries, the relatives not only depicted them upon the chapel walls, but represented in addition the lands which produced them, and the labor which contributed to their production. On one side we see plowing, sowing, reaping, the carrying of the corn, the storing of the grain, the fattening of the poultry, and the driving of the cattle. A little further on, workmen of all descriptions are engaged in their several trades. Shoemakers ply the awl, glassmakers blow through their tubes, metal founders watch over their smelting-pots, carpenters hew down trees and build a ship, groups of women weave or spin under the eye of a frowning taskmaster who seems impatient of their chatter. Did the double in his hunger desire meet? He might choose from the pictures on the wall the animal that pleased him best, whether kid, ox, or gazelle. He might follow the course of its life, from its birth in the meadows to the slaughter-house in the kitchen, and might satisfy his hunger with flesh. The double saw himself represented in the paintings as hunting, and to the hunt he went. He was painted eating and drinking with his wife, and he ate and drank with her. The pictured plowing, harvesting, and gathering into barns thus became to him actual realities. In fine this painted world of men and things represented upon the wall was quickened by the same life which animated the double, upon whom it all depended. The picture of a meal or of a slave was perhaps that which best suited the shade of guest or of master. CHAPTER I Even today, when we enter one of these decorated chapels, the idea of death scarcely presents itself. We have rather the impression of being in some old world house to which the master made any moment return. We see him portrayed everywhere upon the walls, followed by his servants, and surrounded by everything which made his earthly life enjoyable. One or two statues of him stand at the end of the room, in constant readiness to undergo the opening of the mouth and to receive offerings. Should these be accidentally removed, others, secreted in a little chamber hidden in the thickness of the masonry, are there to replace them. These inner chambers rarely have any external outlet, though occasionally they are connected with the chapel by a small opening, so narrow that it will hardly admit of a hand being passed through it. Those who came to repeat prayers and burn incense at this aperture were received by the dead in person. The statues were not merely images devoid of consciousness. Just as the double of a god could be linked to an idol in the temple sanctuary in order to transform it into a prophetic being capable of speech and movement, so when the double of a man was attached to the effigy of his earthly body, whether in stone, metal, or wood, a real living person was created and was introduced into the tomb. So strong was this conviction that the belief has lived on through two changes of religion until the present day. The double still haunts the statues with which he was associated in the past. As in former times he yet strikes with madness or death any who dare to disturb his repose, and one can only be protected from him by breaking, at the moment of discovery, the perfect statues which the vault contains. The double is weakened or killed by the mutilation of these his sustainers. The statues furnish in their modeling a more correct idea of the deceased than his mummy, disfigured as it was by the work of the embalmers. They were also less easily destroyed, and any number could be made at will. Hence arose the really incredible number of statues sometimes hidden away in the same tomb. These sustainers or imperishable bodies of the double were multiplied so as to ensure for him a practical immortality, and the care with which they were shut into a secure hiding-place increased their chances of preservation. All the same no precaution was neglected that could save a mummy from destruction. The shaft leading to it descended to a mean depth of forty to fifty feet, but sometimes it reached, and even exceeded, a hundred feet. Running horizontally from it is a passage so low as to prevent a man standing upright in it, which leads to the sepulcher chamber properly so called, hewn out of the solid rock and devoid of all ornament. The sarcophagus, whether a fine limestone, rose granite, or black basalt, does not always bear the name and titles of the deceased. The servants who deposited the body in it placed beside it on the dusty floor the quarters of the ox, previously slaughtered in the chapel, as well as vials of perfume and large phases of bread pottery containing muddy water, after which they walled up the entrance to the passage and filled the shaft with chips of stone intermingled with earth and gravel. The hole, being well watered, soon hardened into a compact mass, which protected the vault and its master from desecration. During the course of centuries the ever-increasing number of tombs at length formed an almost uninterrupted chain of burying places on the table-land. At Giza they follow a symmetrical plan and line the sides of regular roads. At Sakara they are scattered about on the surface of the ground, in some places sparsely, in others huddled confusedly together. Everywhere the tombs are rich in inscriptions, statues, and painted or sculptured scenes, each revealing some characteristic custom or some detail of contemporary civilization. From the womb, as it were, of these cemeteries, the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties gradually takes new life and reappears in the full daylight of history. Nobles and fellows, soldiers and priests, scribes and craftsmen, the whole nation lives anew before us, each with his manners, his dress, his daily round of occupation and pleasures. It is a perfect picture, and although in places the drawing is to be faced and the color dimmed, yet these may be restored with no great difficulty and with almost absolute certainty. The king stands out boldly in the foreground and his tall figure towers over all else. He so completely transcends his surroundings that at first sight one may well ask if he does not represent a god rather than a man, and as a matter of fact he is a god to his subjects. They call him the good god, the great god, and connect him with Ra through the intervening kings, the successors of the gods who ruled the two worlds. His father before him was Son of Ra, as was also his grandfather and his great grandfather, and so through all his ancestors, until from Son of Ra to Son of Ra they at last reach Ra himself. Sometimes an adventurer of unknown antecedents is abruptly inserted in the series, and we might imagine that he would interrupt the succession of the solar line, but on closer examination we always find that either the intruder is connected with the god by a genealogy hitherto unsuspected, or that he is even more closely related to him than his predecessors, in as much as Ra, having secretly descended upon the earth, had begotten him by a mortal mother in order to rejuvenate the race. If things came to the worst, a marriage with some princess would soon legitimize, if not the usurper himself, at least his descendants, and thus firmly reestablish the succession. The pharaohs, therefore, are blood relations of the sun god, some through their father, others through their mother, directly begotten by the god, and their souls as well as their bodies have a supernatural origin, each soul being a double detached from Horus, the successor of Osiris, and the first to reign alone over Egypt. This divine double is infused into the royal infant at birth, in the same manner as the ordinary double is incarnate in common mortals. It always remained concealed, and seemed to lie dormant in those princes whom destiny did not call upon to reign, but it awoke to full self-consciousness in those who ascended the throne at the moment of their ascension. From that time to the hour of their death, and beyond it, all that they possessed of ordinary humanity was completely effaced. They were from henceforth only the sons of Ra, the Horus, dwelling upon earth, who during his sojourn here below, renews the blessings of Horus, son of Isis. Their complex nature was revealed at the outset in the form and arrangement of their names. Among the Egyptians the choice of a name was not a matter of indifference. Not only did men and beasts, but even inanimate objects, require one or more names, and it may be said that no person or thing in the world could attain to complete existence until the name had been conferred. The most ancient names were often only a short word, which denoted some moral or physical quality, as Titi the runner, Meeni the lasting, Konkeni the crusher, Sondi the formidable, Usnaseet the flowery-tongued. They consisted also of short sentences, by which the royal child confessed his faith in the power of the gods, and his participation in the acts of the sun's life, Kafri, his rising Isra, Men Kauhuri, the doubles of Horus last forever, Usurkiri, the double of Ra is omnipotent. Sometimes the sentence is shortened, and the name of the god is understood, as, for instance, Usurkhaf, his double is omnipotent, Snafmi, he has made me good, Khufibi, he has protected me, are put for names Usurkiri, Patasnafuri, Kanum Khufi, with the suppression of Ra, Patah, and Kanumu. The name having once, as it were, taken possession of a man on his entrance into life, never leaves him either in this world or the next. The prince who had been called Unis or Asi at the moment of his birth retained this name even after death, so long as his mummy existed, and his double was not annihilated. When the Egyptians wished to denote that a person or thing was in a certain place, they inserted their names within the picture of the place in question. Thus the name of Teti is written inside a picture of Teti's symbol, the result being the compound hieroglyph. Again when the son of a king became king in his turn, they enclosed his ordinary name in the long, flat-bottomed frame which we call a cartouche, the elliptical part of which is a kind of plan in the world of representation of those regions passed over by Ra in his journey, and over which Pharaoh, because he is a son of Ra, exercises his rule. On the names of Teti or Snowfery, following the group, which respectively expressed sovereignty over the two halves of Egypt, the south and the north, the whole expression describing exactly the visible person of Pharaoh during his abode among mortals. But this first name chosen for the child did not include the whole man. It left without appropriate designation the double of Horus, which was revealed in the prince at the moment of a session. The double, therefore, received a special title, which is always constructed on a uniform plan. First the picture of the hot god, who desired to leave to his descendants a portion of his soul, then a simple or compound epithet, specifying that virtue of Horus, which the Pharaoh wished particularly to possess, Horu Nibmaik, Horus' master of truth, Horu Myritu, Horus' friend of both lands, Horu Nibkauu, Horus' master of the risings, Horu Maziti, Horus who crushes his enemies. The variable part of these terms is usually written in oblong rectangle, terminated at the lower end by a number of lines portraying in a summary way the facade of a monument, in the center of which a bolted door may sometimes be distinguished. This is the representation of the chapel where the double will one day rest, and the closed door is the portal of the tomb. The stereotyped part of the name and titles, which is represented by the figure of the god, is placed outside the rectangle, sometimes by the side of it, sometimes upon its top. The hawk is, in fact, free by nature, and could nowhere remain imprisoned against his will. This artless preamble was not enough to satisfy the love of precision which is the essential characteristic of the Egyptians. When they wished to represent the double in his sepulchre chamber, they left out of consideration the period in his existence during which he had presided over the earthly destinies of the sovereign, in order to render them similar to those of Horus, from whom the double proceeded. They therefore withdrew him from the tomb which should have been his lot, and there was substituted for the ordinary sparrow hawk one of those groups which symbolized sovereignty over the two countries of the Nile, the coiled Eurasus of the North and the Vulture of the South. There was then finally added a second sparrow hawk, the golden sparrow hawk, the triumphant sparrow hawk which had delivered Egypt from Typhon. The soul of Snofrei, which is called as a surviving double, Horus Master of Truth, is as a living double entitled The Lord of the Vulture and of the Euras, Master of Truth and Horus Triumphant. On the other hand the royal prince, when he put on the diadem, received from the moment of his advancement to the highest rank, such an increase of dignity that his birth name, even when framed in a cartouche and enhanced with brilliant epithets, was no longer able to fully represent him. This exaltation of his person was therefore marked by a new designation. As he was the living flesh of the son, so his surname always makes illusion to some point in his relations with his father, and proclaims the love which he felt for the latter, Miriri, or that the latter experienced for him, Mirniri, or else it indicates the stability of the doubles of Ra, taught to Kari, their goodness, no fair Kari, or some other of their sovereign virtues. Several pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty had already dignified themselves by these surnames. Those of the Sixth were the first to incorporate them regularly into the royal preamble. CHAPTER I. There was some hesitation at first as to the position the surname ought to occupy, and it was sometimes placed after the birth name, as in Papi Nofer Kari, sometimes before it as in Nofer Kari Papi. It was finally decided to place it at the beginning, preceded by the group King of Upper and Lower Egypt, which expresses in its fullest extent the power granted by the gods to the pharaoh alone. The other, or birth name, came after it, accompanied by the words Son of the Son. There were inscribed either before or above these two solar names, which are exclusively applied to the visible and living body of the master, the two names of the sparrowhawk, which belonged especially to the soul, first that of the double in the tomb, and then that of the double while still incarnate. Four terms seemed thus necessary to the Egyptians in order to define accurately the pharaoh, both in time and in eternity. Long centuries were needed before the subtle analysis of the royal person, and the learned graduation of the formulas which corresponded to it, could transform the Nome Chief, become by conquest Suzerain over all other chiefs and King of all Egypt, into a living God here below, the all-powerful Son and successor of the gods. But the divine concept of royalty, once implanted in the mind, quickly produced its inevitable consequences. From the moment that the pharaoh became God upon earth, the gods of heaven, his fathers or his brothers, and the goddesses recognized him as their son, and according to the ceremonial imposed by custom in such cases, consecrated his adoption by offering him the breast to suck, as they would have done to their own child. Ordinary mortals spoke of him only in symbolic words, designating him by some paraphrases. Pharaoh, Piru-e, the double palace, Pruiti, the sublime port, his majesty, the son of the two lands, Horus, master of the palace, or, less ceremoniously, by the indeterminate pronoun, one. The greater number of these terms is always accompanied by a wish addressed to the sovereign for his life, health, and strength, the initial signs of which are written after all his titles. He accepts all this graciously, and even on his own initiative swears by his own life, or by the favor of Ra, but he forbids his subjects imitate him. For them it is a sin, punishable in this world and in the next, to adjure the person of the sovereign, except in the case in which a magistrate requires from them a judicial oath. He is approached, moreover, as a god is approached, with downcast eyes, and head or back bent. They sniff the earth before him. They veil their faces with both hands to shut out the splendor of his appearance. They chanted about form of adoration before submitting to him a petition. No one is free from this obligation. His ministers themselves, and the great ones of his kingdom, cannot deliberate with him on matters of state, without inaugurating the proceeding by a sort of solemn service in his honour, and reciting to him at length a eulogy of his divinity. They did not indeed openly exalt him above the other gods, but these were rather too numerous to share heaven among them, whilst he alone rules over the entire circuit of the sun, and the whole earth, its mountains and planes, are in subjection under his sandaled feet. People, no doubt, might be met with who did not obey him, but these were rebels, adherents of sit, children of un, whose sooner or later would be overtaken by punishment. While hoping that his fictitious claim to Universal Dominion would be realised, the king adopted, in addition to the simple costume of the old chiefs, the long or short petticoat, the jackals' tail, the turned-up sandals, and the insignia of the supreme gods, the ankh, the crook, the flail, and the scepter, tipped with the head of a gerboa or a hair, which we misnamed the cuckoo-fa-headed scepter. He put on the many-coloured diadems of the gods, the head-dresses covered with feathers, the white and the red crowns either separately or combined, so as to form the shent. The viper, or ureus, in metal or gilded wood, which rose from his forehead, was imbued with a mysterious life, which made it a means of executing his vengeance and accomplishing his secret purposes. It was supposed to vomit flames and to destroy those who should dare to attack its master in battle. The supernatural virtues which it communicated to the crown made it an enchanted thing which no one could resist. Lastly, Pharaoh had his temples where his enthroned statue, animated by one of his doubles, received worship, prophesied and fulfilled all the functions of a divine being, both during his life and after he had rejoined in the tomb his ancestors the gods, who existed before him and who now were posed impassively within the depths of their pyramids. Man as far as his body was concerned, and God in virtue of his soul and its attributes, the Pharaoh in right of this double nature acted as a constant mediator between heaven and earth. He alone was fit to transmit the prayers of men to his fathers and his brethren the gods. Just as the head of a family was in his household the priest par excellence of the gods of that family, just as the chief of a nome was in his nome the priest par excellence in regards to the gods of the nome, so was Pharaoh the priest par excellence of the gods of all Egypt, who were his special deities. He accompanied their images in solemn processions. He poured out before them the wine and mystic milk, recited the formulas in their hearing, seized the bull who was the victim with a lasso and slaughtered it according to the rite consecrated by ancient tradition. Private individuals had recourse to his intercession when they asked some favor from on high. As however it was impossible for every sacrifice to pass actually through his hands, the celebrating priests proclaimed at the beginning of each ceremony that it was the king who made the offering, Sutni dihatpu, he and none other, to Osiris, Vita, and Ka Harmakis, so that they might grant to the faithful who implored the object of their desires, and the declaration being accepted in lieu of the act, the king was thus regarded as really officiating on every occasion for his subjects. He thus maintained daily intercourse with the gods, and they on their part did not neglect any occasion of communicating with him. They appeared to him in dreams to foretell his future, to command him to restore a monument which was threatened with ruin, to advise him to set out to war, to forbid him risking his life in the thick of the fight. Communication by prophetic dreams was not, however, the method usually selected by the gods. They employed as interpreters of their wishes the priests and the statues in the temples. The king entered the chapel where the statue was kept, and performed in its presence the invocatory rites, and questioned it upon the subject which occupied his mind. The priests replied under direct inspiration from on high, and the dialogue thus entered upon might last a long time. Interminimal discourses, whose records cover the walls of the Theven temples, inform us what the pharaoh said on such occasions, and in what emphatic tones the gods replied. Sometimes the animated statues raised their voice in the darkness of the sanctuary, and themselves announced their will. More frequently they were content to indicate it by a gesture. When they were consulted on some particular subject and returned no sign, it was their way of signifying their disapprobation. If on the other hand they significantly bowed their head, once or twice, the subject was an acceptable one, and they approved it. No state affair was settled without asking their advice, and without their giving it in one way or another. The monuments, which throw full light on the supernatural character of the pharaohs in general, tell us but little of the individual disposition of any king in particular, or of their everyday life. When by chance we come into closer intimacy for a moment with the sovereign, he is revealed to us as being less divine and majestic than we might have been led to believe, had we judged him only by his impassive expression and by the pomp with which he was surrounded in public. Not that he ever quite laid aside his grandeur, even in his home life, in his chamber or his garden, during those hours when he felt himself withdrawn from public gaze, those highest in rank might never forget when they approached him that he was a god. He showed himself to be a kind father, a good-natured husband, ready to dally with his wives and caress them on the cheek as they offered him a flower, or moved to peace upon the draught-board. He took an interest in those who waited on him, allowed them certain breaches of etiquette when he was pleased with them, and was indulgent to their little failings. If they had just returned from foreign lands, a little countryfied after a lengthy exile from the court, he would break out into the pleasantries over their embarrassment and their unfashionable costume, kingly pleasantries which excited the forced mirth of the bystanders, but which soon fell flat and had no meaning for those outside the palace. The pharaoh was fond of laughing and drinking, indeed if we may believe evil tongues he took so much at times as to incapacitate him for business. The chase was not always a pleasure to him, hunting in the desert at least, where the lions evinced to provoking tendency to show his little respect for the divinity of the prince as for his mortal subjects. But like the chiefs of old he felt it a duty to his people to destroy wild beasts, and he ended by counting the slain in hundreds, however short his reign might be. A considerable part of his time was taken up in war, in the east against the Libyans in the regions of the Oasis, in the Nile valley to the south of Oswan against the Nubians, on the Isthmus of Suez and in the Sinatic Peninsula against the Bedouin, frequently also in a civil war against some ambitious noble or some turbulent member of his own family. He traveled frequently from south to north, and from north to south, leaving in every possible place marked traces of his visits, on the rocks of Elephantine and of the First Cataract, on those of Cilcilus or of Elcob, and he appeared to his vassals as Tumu himself arisen among them to repress injustice and disorder. He restored or enlarged the monuments, regulated equitably the assessment of taxes and charges, settled or dismissed the lawsuits between one town and another concerning the appropriation of the water, or the possession of certain territories, distributed fives which had fallen vacant among his faithful servants, and granted pensions to be paid out of the royal revenues. At length he re-entered Memphis, or one of his usual residences, where fresh labours awaited him. He gave audience daily to all, whether high or low, who were or who believed that they were, wronged by some official, and who came to appeal to the justice of the master against the injustice of his servant. If he quitted the palace when the cause had been heard, to take boat or to go to the temple, he was not left undisturbed, but petitions and supplications assailed him by the way. In addition to this, there were the daily sacrifices, the despatch of current affairs, the ceremonies which demanded the presence of the pharaoh, and the reception of nobles or foreign envoys. One would think that in the midst of so many occupations he would never feel time hang heavy on his hands. He was, however, a prey to that profound ennui which most oriental monarchs feel so keenly, and which neither the cares nor the pleasures of ordinary life could dispel. Like the sultans of the Arabian knights, the pharaohs were accustomed to have marvelous tales related to them, or they assembled their counselors to ask them to suggest some fresh amusement. A happy thought would sometimes strike one of them, as in the case of him who aroused the interest of Snowfrey by recommending him to have his boatmaned by young girls barely clad in large meshed network. All his pastimes were not so playful. The Egyptians by nature were not cruel, and we have very few records either in history or tradition of bloodthirsty pharaohs. But the life of an ordinary individual was of so little value in their eyes that they never hesitated to sacrifice it, even for a caprice. A sorcerer had no sooner boasted before chaos of being able to raise the dead than the king proposed that he should try the experiment on a prisoner whose head was to be forthwith cut off. The anger of pharaoh was quickly excited, and once aroused became an all-consuming fire. The Egyptians were want to say, in describing its intensity, his majesty became as furious as a panther. The wild beast often revealed itself in the half-civilized man. The royal family was very numerous. The women were principally chosen from the relatives of court officials of high rank, or from the daughters of the great feudal lords. There were, however, many strangers among them, daughters or sisters of petty Libyan, Nubian, or Asiatic kings. They were brought into pharaoh's house as hostages for the submission of their respective peoples. They did not all enjoy the same treatment or consideration, and their original position decided their status in the harem, unless the amorous caprice of their masters should otherwise decide. Most of them remained merely concubines for life, others were raised to the rank of royal spouses, and at least one received the title and privileges of great spouse or queen. This was rarely accorded to a stranger, but almost always to a princess born in the purple, a daughter of Ra, if possible a sister of the pharaoh, and who inheriting in the same degree and in equal proportion the flesh and blood of the sun god, had more than others the right to share the bed and throne of her brother. End of Section III. Read by Professor Heatheran Bay. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Section IV. The Queen had her own house, and a train of servants and followers as large as those of the king. While the women of inferior rank were more or less shut up in the parts of the palace assigned to them, she came and went at pleasure, and appeared in public with or without her husband. The preamble of official documents in which she is mentioned solemnly recognizes her as the living follower of Horus, the associate of the Lord of the Vulture and the Eureus, the very gentle, the very praiseworthy, she who sees her Horus, or Horus and sit, face-to-face. Her union with the god king rendered her a goddess, and entailed upon her the fulfillment of all duties which a goddess owed to a god. They were varied and important. The woman, indeed, was supposed to combine in herself more completely than a man the qualities necessary for the exercise of magic, whether legitimate or otherwise. She saw and heard that which the eyes and ears of man could not perceive. Her voice, being more flexible and piercing, was heard at greater distances. She was, by nature, mistress of the art of summoning or banishing invisible beings. While Pharaoh was engaged in sacrificing, the queen, by her incantations, protected him from malignant deities, whose interest it was to divert the attention of the celebrant from holy things. She put them to flight by the sound of prayer and system. She poured libations and offered perfumes and flowers. In processions she walked behind her husband, gave audience with him, governed for him while he was engaged in foreign wars, or during his progresses through his kingdom. Such was the work of Isis while her brother Osiris was conquering the world. Widowhood did not always entirely disqualify her. If she belonged to the solar race, and the new sovereign was a minor, she acted as regent by her redditary right, and retained the authority for some years longer. It occasionally happened that she had no posterity, or that the child of another woman inherited the crown. In that case there was no law or custom to prevent a young and beautiful widow from wedding the son, and thus were gaining her rank as queen by a marriage with the successor of her deceased husband. It was in this manner that, during the earlier part of the Fourth Dynasty, the Princess Meretotepsi ingratiated herself successively in the favor of snowfru and chaos. Such a case did not often arise, and a queen who had once quitted the throne had but little chance of again ascending it. Her titles, her duties, her supremacy over the rest of the family, passed to a younger rival. Formerly she had been the active companion of the king. She now became only the nominal spouse of the god, and her office came to an end when the god, of whom she had been the goddess, quitting his body, departed heavenward to rejoin his father the son on the far distant horizon. Children swarmed in the palace, as in the houses of private individuals. In spite of the number who died in infancy, they were reckoned by tens, sometimes by the hundred, and more than one pharaoh must have been puzzled to remember exactly the number and names of his offspring. The origin and rank of their mothers greatly influenced the condition of the children. No doubt the divine blood which they took from a common father raised them all above the vulgar herd, but those connected with the solar line on the maternal side occupied a decidedly much higher position than the rest. As long as one of those was living, none of his less nobly born brothers might aspire to the crown. Those princesses who did not attain to the rank of queen by marriage were given in early youth to some well-to-do relative, or to some courtier of high descent whom pharaoh wished to honor. They filled the office of priestesses to the god Knitt or Hathor, and bore in their households titles which they transmitted to their children, with such rights to the crown as belonged to them. The most favored of the princes, married and heiress rich in fives, settled on her domain, and founded a race of feudal lords. Most of the royal sons remained at court, at first in their father's service and subsequently in that of their brothers or nephews. The most difficult and best remunerated functions of the administration were assigned to them. The superintendent of public works. The important offices of the priesthood. The command of the army. It could have been no easy matter to manage without friction this multitude of relations and connections, past and present queens, sisters, concubines, uncles, brothers, cousins, nephews, sons and grandsons of kings who crowded the harem and the palace. The women contended among themselves for the affection of the master, on behalf of themselves or their children. The children were jealous of one another, and had often no bond of union except a common hatred for the son whom the chances of birth had destined to be their ruler. As long as he was full of vigor and energy, Pharaoh maintained order in his family. But when his advancing years and failing strength betokened and approaching change in the succession, competition showed itself more openly, and intrigue thickened around him or around his nearest heirs. Sometimes indeed he took precautions to prevent an outbreak and its disastrous consequences, by solemnly associating with himself in the royal power the son he had chosen to succeed him. The group in this case had to obey two masters, the younger of whom attended to the more active duties of royalty, such as progress as through the country, the conducting of military expeditions, the hunting of wild beasts, and the administration of justice, while the other preferred to confine himself to the role of adviser or benevolent counselor. Even this precaution, however, was insufficient to prevent disasters. The women of the Siraglio, encouraged from without or by their relations or friends, plotted secretly for the removal of the irksome sovereign. Those princes who had been deprived by their father's decision of any legitimate hope of reigning concealed their discontent to no purpose. They were arrested on the first suspicion of disloyalty, and were massacred wholesale. Their only chance of escaping, summary execution, was either by rebellion or by taking refuge with some independent tribe of Livia or in the desert of Sinai. Should we but know the details of the internal history of Egypt, it would appear to us as stormy and bloody as that of other Oriental empires. Intrigues of the harem, conspiracies in the palace, murders of heirs apparent, divisions and rebellions in the royal family, were the almost inevitable accompaniment of every accession to the Egyptian throne. The earliest dynasties had their origin in the white wall, but the pharaohs hardly ever made this town their residence, and it would be incorrect to say that they considered it as their capital. Each king chose for himself in the Memphite or Letopolite Nome between the entrance to the Fayum and the Apex of the Delta, a special residence, where he dwelt with his court, and from whence he governed Egypt. Such a multitude as formed his court needed not an ordinary palace but an entire city. A brick wall, surmounted by battlements, formed a square or rectangular enclosure around it, and was of sufficient thickness and height not only to defy a popular insurrection or the surprises of marauding Bedouin, but to resist for a long time a regular siege. At the extreme end of one of its facades was a tall and narrow opening, closed by a wooden door supported on bronze hinges, and surmounted with a row of pointed metal ornaments. This opened into a long, narrow passage between the external wall and a partition wall of equal strength. At the end of the passage in the angle was a second door, sometimes leading into a second passage, but more often opening into a large courtyard, where the dwelling houses were somewhat crowded together. Assalants ran the risk of being annihilated in the passage before reaching the center of the place. The royal residence could be immediately distinguished by the projecting balconies on its façade, from which, as from a tribune, Pharaoh could watch the evolutions of his guard, the stately approach of foreign envoys, Egyptian nobles seeking audience, or such officials as he desired to reward for their services. They advanced from the far end of the court, stopped before the balcony, and after prostrating themselves stood up, bowed their heads, rung and twisted their hands, now quickly, now slowly, in a rhythmical manner, and rendered worship to their master, chanting his praises before receiving the necklaces and jewels of gold which he presented to them by his chamberlains, or which he himself deigned to fling to them. It is difficult for us to catch a glimpse of the detail of the internal arrangements. We find, however, mention made of large halls, resembling the hall of Atumou in the heavens, whether the king repaired to deal with state affairs and counsel, to dispense justice, and sometimes also to preside at state banquets. Long rows of tall columns carved out of rare woods and painted with bright colors supported the roofs of these chambers, which were entered by doors inlaid with gold and silver, and encrusted with malachite or lapis lazuli. The private apartments, the Akhon Nuiti, were entirely separate, but they communicated with the queen's dwelling and with the harem of the wives of inferior rank. The royal children occupied a quarter to themselves under the care of their tutors. They had their own houses and a train of servants proportionate to their rank, age, and the fortune of their mother's family. The nobles who had appointments at court and the royal domestics lived in the palace itself, but the offices of the different functionaries, the storehouses for their provisions, the dwellings of their employees, formed distinct quarters outside the palace, grouped around narrow courts, and communicating with each other by a labyrinth of lanes or covered passages. The entire building was constructed of wood or bricks, thus frequently of roughly dressed stone, badly built and wanting in solidity. The ancient pharaohs were no more inclined than the sultans of later days to occupy palaces in which their predecessors had lived and died. Each king desired to possess a habitation after his own heart, one which would not be haunted by the memory or perchance the double of another sovereign. These royal mansions, hastily erected, hastily filled with occupants, were vacated and fell into ruin with no less rapidity. They grew old with their master, or even more rapidly than he, and his disappearance almost always entailed their ruin. In the neighborhood of Memphis many of these palaces might be seen, which their short-lived masters had built for eternity, and eternity which did not last longer than the lives of their builders. Nothing could present a greater variety than the population of these ephemeral cities in the climax of their splendor. We have first the people who immediately surrounded the pharaoh, the retainers of the palace and of the harem, whose highly complex degrees of rank are revealed to us on the monuments. His person was, as it were, minutely subdivided into departments, each requiring its attendants and their appointed chiefs. His toilette alone gave employment to a score of different trades. There were royal barbers who had the privilege of shaving his head and chin, hairdressers who made, curled, and put on his black or blue wigs, and adjusted the diadems to them. There were manicures who paired and polished his nails, perfumers who prepared the scented oils and pomades for the anointing of his body, the coal for blackening his eyelids, the rouge for spreading on his lips and cheeks. His wardrobe required a whole troop of shoemakers, belt-makers, and tailors, some of whom had the care of stuffs in the piece, others provided over the body linen, while others took charge of his garments, comprising long or short, transparent or thick petticoats, fitting tightly to the hips or cut with ample fullness, draped mantles and flowing polices. Side by side with these officials the laundresses plied their trade, which was an important one among the people devoted to white, and in whose estimation want of cleanliness and dress entailed religious impurity. Like the Felahine of the present time they took their linen daily to wash in the river. They rinsed, starched, smoothed, and pleaded it without intermission to supply the incessant demands of Pharaoh and his family. CHAPTER I. The task of those set over the jewels was no easy one, when we consider the enormous variety of necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and sceptres of rich workmanship, which ceremonial costume required for particular times and occasions. The guardianship of the crown almost approached to the dignity of the priesthood, for was not the Eureus, which ornamented each one, a living goddess? The queen required numerous waiting-women, and the same ample number of attendants were to be encountered in the establishments of the other ladies of the harem. Troops of musicians, singers, dancers, and almas wild away the tedious hours supplemented by buffoons and dwarves. The great Egyptian lords evinced a curious liking for these unfortunate beings, and amused themselves by getting together the ugliest and most deformed creatures. They are often represented on the tombs beside their masters in company with his pet-dog, or gazelle, or with a monkey which they sometimes hold in a leash, or sometimes are engaged in teasing. Sometimes the Pharaoh bestowed his friendship on his dwarves and confided to them occupations in his household. One of them, Kanum Hotpu, died superintendent of the royal linen. The staff of servants required for supplying the table exceeded all the others in number. It could scarcely be otherwise if we consider that the master had to provide food, not only for his regular servants, but for all those of his employees and subjects whose business brought them to the royal residence. Even those poor wretches who came to complain to him of some more or less imaginary grievance were fed at his expense while awaiting his judicial verdict. Head-cooks, butlers, pantlers, pastry-cooks, fish-mongers, game or fruit-dealers, if all enumerated would be endless. The bakers who baked the ordinary bread were not to be confounded with those who manufactured biscuits. The makers of pancakes and doughnuts took precedence of the cake-bakers, and those who concocted delicate fruit preserves ranked higher than the common drier of dates. If one had held a post in the royal household, however low the occupation, it was something to be proud of all one's life and after death to boast of in one's epitaph. The chiefs to whom this army of servants rendered obedience at times rose from the ranks. On some occasion their master had noticed them in a crowd, and had transferred them, some by a single promotion, others by slow degrees, to the highest offices of the state. Many among them, however, belonged to old families, and held positions in the palace which their fathers and grandfathers had occupied before them. Some were members of the provincial nobility, distant descendants of former royal princes and princesses, more or less nearly related to the reigning sovereign. They had been sought out to be the companions of his education and of his pastime. While he was still living an obscure life in the house of the children, he had grown up with them and had kept them about his person as his soul-friends and counsellors. He lavished titles and offices upon them by the dozen. According to the confidence he felt in their capacity, or to the amount of faithfulness with which he credited them. A few of the most favoured were called masters of the secret of the royal house. They knew all the innermost recesses of the palace, all the passwords needed in going from one part of it to another, the place where the royal treasures were kept, and the modes of access to it. Several of them were masters of the secret of all the royal words, and had authority over the high couriers of the palace, which gave them the power of banishing whom they pleased from the person of the sovereign. Upon others devolved the task of arranging his amusements. They rejoiced the heart of his majesty by pleasant songs, while the chiefs of the sailors and soldiers kept watch over his safety. To these active services were attached honorary privileges which were highly esteemed, such as the right to retain their sandals in the palace, while the general crowd of courtiers could only enter unshawed. That of kissing the knees and not the feet of the good God, and that of wearing the panther's skin. Among those who enjoyed these distinctions were the physician of the king, chaplains, and men of the role, Cree Habi. The latter did not confine themselves to the task of guiding Pharaoh through the intricacies of ritual, nor to that of prompting him with the necessary formulas needed to make the sacrifice efficacious. They were styled masters of the secrets of heaven, those who see what is in the firmament, on the earth and in Hades, those who know all the charms of the soothsayers, prophets, or magicians. The laws relating to the government of the seasons and the stars presented no mysteries to them. Neither were they ignorant of the months, days, or hours propitious to the undertakings of every day life, or to the starting out on an expedition, nor of those times during which any action was dangerous. They drew their inspirations from the books of magic written by thought, which taught them the art of interpreting dreams or of curing the sick, or of invoking and obliging the gods to assist them, and of arresting or hastening the progress of the sun on the celestial ocean. Some are mentioned as being able to divide the waters at their will, and to cause them to return to their natural place, merely by means of a short formula. An image of a man or animal made by them out of enchanted wax was imbued with life at their command, and became an irresistible instrument of their wrath. Popular stories reveal them to us at work. "'Is it true,' said Keops, to one of them, that thou canst replace a head which has been cut off? On his admitting that he could do so, Pharaoh immediately desired to test his power. Bring me a prisoner from prison and let him be slain.' The magician at this proposal exclaimed, "'Nay, nay, not a man, sire, my master, do not command that this sin should be committed. A fine animal will suffice.' A goose was brought. Its head was cut off, and the body was placed on the right side, and the head of the goose on the left side of the hall. He recited what he recited from his book of magic. The goose began to hop forward, the head moved on to it, and when both were united the goose began to cackle. A pelican was introduced and underwent the same process. His majesty then caused a bull to be brought forward, and its head was smitten to the ground. The magician recited what he recited from his book of magic. The bull it once arose, and he replaced on it what had fallen to the earth. The great lords themselves stained to become initiated into the occult sciences, and were invested with these formidable powers. A prince who practised magic would enjoy amongst dust nowadays but small esteem. In Egypt sorcery was not considered incompatible with royalty, and the magicians of Pharaoh often took Pharaoh himself as their pupil. Such were the king's household, the people about his person and those attached to the service of his family. His capitals sheltered a still greater number of officials and functionaries who were charged with the administration of his fortune. That is to say, what he possessed in Egypt. In theory it was always supposed that the whole of the soil belonged to him, but that he and his predecessors had diverted and parceled off such an amount of it for the benefit of their favourites, or for the hereditary lords, that only half of the actual territory remained under his immediate control. He governed most of the nomes of the delta in person. Beyond the phaume he merely retained isolated lands, enclosed in the middle of feudal principalities and often at a considerable distance from each other. The extent of the royal domain varied with different dynasties, and even from rain to rain. If it sometimes decreased, owing to two frequently repeated concessions, its losses were generally amply compensated by the confiscation of certain fives, or by their lapsing to the crown. The domain was always of sufficient extent to oblige the Pharaoh to confide the larger portion of it to officials of various kinds, and to farm merely a small remainder of the royal slaves. In the latter case he reserved for himself all the profits, but at the expense of all the annoyance and all the outlay. In the former he obtained without any risk the annual dues, the amount of which was fixed on the spot, according to the resources of the nome. In order to understand the manner in which the government of Egypt was conducted, we should never forget that the world was still ignorant of the use of money, and that gold, silver, and copper, however abundant we may suppose them to have been, were merely articles of exchange, like the most common products of the Egyptian soil. Pharaoh was not then, as the state is with us, a treasurer who calculates the total of his receipts and expenses in ready money, banks his revenue in specie occupying but little space, and settles his accounts from the same source. His fiscal receipts were in kind, and it was in kind that he remunerated his servants for their labor—cattle, cereals, fermented drinks, oils, stuffs, common or precious metals, all that the heavens give, all that the earth produces, all that the Nile brings from its mysterious sources, constituted the coinage in which his subjects paid him their contributions, and which he passed on to his vassals by way of salary. One room, a few feet square, and if need be, one safe, would easily contain the entire revenue of one of our modern empires. The largest of our emporiums would not always have sufficed to hold the mass of incongruous objects which represented the returns of a single Egyptian province. As the products in which the tax was paid took various forms, it was necessary to have an infinite variety of special agents and suitable places to receive it—herdsmen and sheds for the oxen, measurers and granaries for the grain, butlers and cellarers for the wine, beer, and oils. The product of the tax, while awaiting redistribution, could only be kept from deteriorating in value by incessant labor, in which a score of different classes of clerks and workmen in the service of the treasury all took part, according to their trades. If the tax were received in oxen it was led to pastridge, or at times when a murain threatened to destroy it to the slaughterhouse and the courier. If it were in corn it was bolted, ground to flour and made into bread and pastry. If it were in stuffs it was washed, ironed, and bolted to be retained as garments or in the piece. The royal treasury partook of the character of the farm, the warehouse, and the manufactory. Each of the departments which helped to swell its contents occupied within the palace enclosure a building or group of buildings which was called its house, or as we should say its storehouse. There was the white storehouse where the stuffs and jewels were kept, and at times the wine, the storehouse of the oxen, the gold storehouse, the storehouse for preserved fruits, the storehouse for grain, the storehouse for liquors, and ten other storehouses of the application of which we are not always sure. In the storehouse of weapons or armory were ranged thousands of clubs, maces, pikes, daggers, bows, and bundles of arrows, which Pharaoh distributed to his recruits whenever a war forced him to call out his army, and which were again warehoused after the campaign. The storehouses were further subdivided into rooms or storechambers, each reserved for its own category of objects. It would be difficult to enumerate the number of storechambers in the outbuildings of the storehouse of provisions, storechambers for butchers' meat, for fruits, for beer, bread, and wine, in which were deposited as much of each article of food as would be required by the court for some days or at most a few weeks. They were brought there from the larger storehouses, the wines from vaults, the oxen from their stalls, the corn from the graineries. The latter were vast brick-built receptacles, ten or more in a row, circular in shape and surmounted by cupolas, but having no communication with each other. They had only two openings, one at the top for pouring in the grain, another at the ground level for drawing it out. A notice posted up outside, often on the shutter which closed the chamber, indicated the character and quantity of the serials within. For the security and management of these there were employed troops of porters, storekeepers, accountants, primates, who superintended the works, recordkeepers and directors. Great nobles coveted the administration of the storehouses, and even the sons of kings did not think it derogatory to their dignity to be entitled directors of the graineries or directors of the armory. There was no law against pluralists, and more than one of them both on his tomb of having held simultaneously five or six offices. These storehouses participated like all the other dependencies of the crown, in that duality which characterized the person of the pharaoh. They would be called in common parlance the storehouse or the double-white storehouse, the storehouse or the double-gold storehouse, the double-warehouse, the double-grainery. CHAPTER I. THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT PART VI. The large towns, as well as the capital, possessed their double-storehouses and their store chambers, into which were gathered the products of the neighborhood, but where a complete staff of employees was not always required. In such towns we meet with localities, in which the commodities were housed merely temporarily. The least perishable part of the provincial dues was forwarded by boat to the royal residence, and swelled the central treasury. The remainder was used on the spot for paying workman's wages and for the needs of the administration. We see from the inscriptions that the staffs of officials who administered affairs in the provinces was similar to that in the royal city. Starting from the top and going down to the bottom of the scale, each functionaries supervised those beneath him, while as a body they were all responsible for their depot. Any irregularity in the entries entailed the bastinato. Peculators were punished by imprisonment, mutilation or death, according to the gravity of the offence. Those whom illness or age rendered unfit for work were penchoned for the remainder of their life. The rider, or as we call him, the scribe, was the mainspring of all this machinery. We come across him in all grades of the staff. An insignificant registrar of oxen, a clerk of the double white storehouse, ragged, humble, and badly paid, was a scribe just as much as the noble, the priest, or the king's son. Thus the title of scribe was of no value in itself, and did not designate, as one might naturally think, a savant educated in a school of high culture, or a man of the world, burst in the sciences and the literature of his time. Elcobbe was a scribe who knew how to read, ride, and cipher, was fairly proficient in wording the administrative formulas, and could easily apply the elementary rules of bookkeeping. There was no public school in which the scribe could be prepared for his future career, but as soon as a child had acquired the first rudiments of letters with some old pedagogue, his father took him with him to his office, or entrusted him to some friend who agreed to undertake his education. The apprentice observed what went on around him, imitated the mode of procedure of the employees, copied in his spare time old papers, letters, bills, flowerly worded petitions, reports, complementary addresses to his superiors or to the pharaoh, all of which his patron examined and corrected, noting on the margins letters or words imperfectly written, improving the style and recasting or completing the incorrect expressions. As soon as he could put together a certain number of sentences or figures without a mistake, he was allowed to draw up bills, or to have the sole superintendents of some department of the treasury, his work being gradually increased in amount and difficulty. When he was considered to be sufficiently au courant with the ordinary business, his education was declared to be finished, and a situation was found for him either in the place where he had begun his probation or in some neighboring office. Thus equipped the young man ended usually by succeeding his father or his patron. In most of the government administrations we find whole dynasties of scribes on a small scale whose members inherited the same post for several centuries. The position was an insignificant one and the salary poor, but the means of existence were assured the occupant was exempted from forced labor and from military service, and he exercised a certain authority in the narrow world in which he lived. It suffice to make him think himself happy, and in fact to be so. One has only to be a scribe, said the wise man, for the scribe takes the lead of all. Sometimes, however, one of these contented officials, more intelligent or ambitious than his fellows, succeeded in rising above the common mediocrity. His fine handwriting, the happy choice of his sentences, his activity, his obliging manner, his honesty, perhaps also his discreet dishonesty, attracted the attention of his superiors and were the cause of his promotion. The son of a peasant or of some poor wretch who had begun life by keeping a register of the bread and vegetables in some provincial government office had been often known to crown his long and successful career by exercising a kind of vice regency over the half of Egypt. His granaries overflowed with corn, his storehouses were always full of gold, fine stuffs and precious phases, his stalls multiplied the backs of his oxen, the sons of his early patrons having now become in turn his protégés did not venture to approach him except with bowed head and bended knee. No doubt the Amten whose tomb was removed to Berlin by Lepceus and put together piece by piece in the museum was a parvenu of this kind. He was born rather more than four thousand years before our era under one of the last kings of the Third Dynasty and he lived until the reign of the first king of the Fourth Dynasty, Snufru. He probably came from the Nome of Bull, if not from Zos itself, in the heart of the Delta. The scribe Anu Pumonku held in addition to his office several landed estates, producing large returns, but his mother, Nibsonit, who appears to have been merely a concubine, had no personal fortune and would have been unable even to give her child an education. Anu Pumonku made himself entirely responsible for the necessary expenses, giving him all the necessities of life at a time when he had not as yet either corn, barley, income, house, men or women's servants, or troops of asses, pigs, or oxen. As soon as he was in a condition to provide for himself, his father obtained for him, in his native Nome, the post of chief scribe attached to one of the localities which belonged to the administration of provisions. On behalf of the Pharaoh, the young man received, registered, and distributed the meat, cakes, fruits, and fresh vegetables which constituted the taxes, all on his own responsibility, except that he had to give an account of them to the director of the storehouse who was nearest to him. We are not told how long he remained in this occupation. We see merely that he was raised successively to posts of an analogous kind, but of increasing importance. The provincial offices comprised a small staff of employees, consisting always of the same officials, a chief whose ordinary function was director of the storehouse, a few scribes to keep the accounts, one or two of whom added to his ordinary calling that of keeper of the archives, paid ushers to introduce clients, and if need be, to basten out of them summarily at the order of the director. Lastly, the strong of voice, the criers, who superintended the incomings and outgoings, and proclaimed the account of them to the scribes to be noted down forthwith. A vigilant and honest crier was a man of great value. He obliged the taxpayer not only to deliver the exact number of measures prescribed as his quota, but also compelled him to deliver good measure in each case. A dishonest crier, on the contrary, could easily favor cheating, provided that he shared in the spoil. Amten was at once crier and taxer of the colonists to the civil administrator of the Zote Nome. He announced the names of the peasants and the payments they made, then estimated the amount of the local tax which each, according to his income, had to pay. He distinguished himself, so preeminently in these delicate duties, that the civil administrator of Sose made him one of his subordinates. He became chief of the ushers, afterwards master crier, then director of all the king's flax, in the Zote Nome, an office which entailed on him the supervision of the culture, cutting, and general preparation of flax for the manufacture which was carried on in Pharaoh's own domain. It was one of the highest offices in the provincial administration, and Amten must have congratulated himself on his appointment. From that moment his career became a great one, and he advanced quickly. Up to that time he had been confined in offices. He now left them to perform more active service. The Pharaohs, extremely jealous of their own authority, usually avoided placing at the head of the Nome's in their domain a single ruler, who would have appeared too much like a prince. They preferred having in each center of civil administration governors of the town or province, as well as military commanders who were jealous of one another, supervised one another, counterbalanced one another, and did not remain long enough in office to become dangerous. Amten held all these posts successively in most of the Nome's situated in the center or the west of the Delta. His first appointment was to the government of the village of Pidosu, an unimportant post in itself, but one which entitled him to a staff of office, and in consequence procured for him one of the greatest indulgences of vanity that an Egyptian could enjoy. The staff was, in fact, a symbol of command which only the nobles and the officials associated with the nobility could carry without transgressing custom. The assumption of it, as that of the sword with us, showed everyone that the bearer was a member of a privileged class. Amten was no sooner a noble than his functions began to expand. Villages were rapidly added to villages, then towns to towns, including such an important one as Buto, and finally the Nome's of the Harpoon, of the Bull, of the Silurus, the western half of the Saitenome, the Nome of the Haunch, and part of the Fayyum came within his jurisdiction. The western half of the Saitenome, where he long resided, corresponded with what was later called the Libyan Nome. It reached from the apex of the delta to the sea, and was bounded on one side by the Canopic branch of the Nile, on the other by the Libyan range, a part of the desert as well as the Oasis fell under its rule. It included among its population, as did many of the provinces of Upper Egypt, regiments composed of nomad hunters, who were compelled to pay their tribute in living or dead game. Amten was metamorphosed into chief huntsman, scoured the mountains with his men, and thereupon became one of the most important personages in defense of the country. The pharaohs had built fortified stations, and had from time to time constructed walls at certain points where the roads entered the valley, at Sain, at Coptos, and at the entrance to the Wadi Tumilat. Amten, having been proclaimed primate of the Western Gate, that is, Governor of the Libyan Marches, undertook to protect the frontier against the wandering Bedouin from the other side of Lake Maratis. His duties as chief huntsman had been the best preparation he could have had for this arduous task. They had forced him to make incessant expeditions among the mountains, to explore the gorges and ravines, to be acquainted with the routes marked out by wells which the marauders were obliged to follow in their incursions, and the pathways and passes by which they could descend into the plain of the Delta. In running the game to earth he had gained all the knowledge needful for repulsing the enemy. Such a combination of capabilities made Amten the most important noble in this part of Egypt. When old age at last prevented him from leading an active life, he accepted, by way of a penchant, the governorship of the Nome of the Hunch. With civil authority, military command, local priestly functions, and honorary distinctions, he lacked only one thing to make him the equal of the nobles of ancient family, and that was permission to bequeath without restriction his towns and offices to his children. His private fortune was not as great as we might be led to think. He inherited from his father only one estate, but had acquired twelve others in the Nome of the Delta, whether his successive appointments had led him. He received, subsequently, in the Sait, Zote, and Leto-Polyte Nome's. He received subsequently as a reward for his services two hundred portions of cultivated land, with numerous peasants, both male and female, and an income of one hundred loaves daily, a first charge upon the funeral provision of Queen Hapunimite. He took advantage of this windfall to endow his family suitably. His only son was already provided for, thanks to the munificence of Pharaoh, he had begun his administrative career by holding the same post of scribe in addition to the office of provision registrar which his father had held, and over and above these he received, by royal grant, four portions of corn land with their population and stock. Omten gave twelve portions to his other children and fifty to his mother Nipsonite, by means of which she lived comfortably in her old age, and left an annuity for maintaining worship at her tomb. He built upon the remainder of the land a magnificent villa, of which he has considerably left us the description. The boundary wall formed a square of three hundred and fifty feet on each face, and consequently contained a superfaces of one hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred square feet. The well-built dwelling-house, completely furnished with all the necessities of life, was surrounded by ornamental and fruit-bearing trees, the common palm, the nebeck, fig-trees, and acacias, several ponds neatly bordered with greenery, afforded a habitat for aquatic birds, trellised vines, according to custom, ran in front of the house, and two plots of ground, planted with vines and full bearing, amply supplied the owner with wine every year. It was there, doubtless, that Omten ended his days in peace and quietude of mind. The table-land, whereon the Sphinx has watched for so many centuries, was then crowned by no pyramids, but mastabas of fine white stone rose here and there from out of the sand. That in which the mummy of Omten was to be enclosed was situated not far from the modern village of Abusir, on the confines of the Nome of the Hodge, and almost inside of the mansion in which his declining years were spent. CHAPTER I The number of persons of obscure origin, who in this manner had risen in a few years to the highest honours, and died governors of provinces or ministers of Pharaoh, must have been considerable. Their descendants followed in their fathers' footsteps, until the day came when royal favour or an advantageous marriage secured them the possession of an hereditary fife, and transformed the son or grandson of a prosperous scribe into a feudal lord. It was from people of this class, and from the children of the Pharaoh that the nobility was mostly recruited. In the Delta, where the authority of the Pharaoh was almost everywhere directly felled, the power of the nobility was weakened and much curtailed. In Middle Egypt it gained ground, and became stronger and stronger in proportion as one advanced southward. The nobles held the principalities of the gazelle, of the hair, of the serpent-mountain, of Akmim, of Thines, of Qasar-as-Said, of Elqab, of Aswan, and doubtless others of which we shall someday discover the monuments. They accepted without difficulty the fiction according to which Pharaoh claimed to be absolute master of the soil, and seated to his subjects only the use of fruit of their fives. But apart from the admission of the principal, each lord proclaimed himself sovereign in his own domain, and exercised in it on a small scale complete royal authority. Everything within the limits of this petty state belonged to him—woods, canals, fields, even the desert sand. For the example of the Pharaoh he farmed apart himself and let out the remainder, either in farms or as fives, to those of his followers who had gained his confidence or his friendship. After the example of Pharaoh also he was a priest, and exercised priestly functions in relation to all the gods, that is, not of all Egypt, but of all the deities of the Nome. He was an administrator of civil and criminal law, received the complaints of his vassals and serfs at the gate of his palace, but against his decisions there was no appeal. He kept up a flotilla, and raised on his estate a small army, of which he was commander-in-chief by hereditary right. He inhabited a fortified mansion, situated sometimes within the capital of the principality itself, sometimes in its neighborhood, and in which the arrangements of the royal city were reproduced on a smaller scale. Side by side with the reception halls was the harem, where the legitimate wife, often a princess of solar rank, played the role of queen, surrounded by concubines, dancers, and slaves. The offices of the various departments were crowded into the enclosure with their directors, governors, scribes of all ranks, custodians, and workmen, who bore the same titles as the corresponding employees in the departments of the state. Their white storehouse, their gold storehouse, their granary, were at times called the double white storehouse, the double gold storehouse, the double granary, as were those of the pharaoh. Amusements at the court of the vassal did not differ from those at that of the sovereign, hunting in the desert and the marshes, fishing, inspection of agricultural works, military exercises, games, songs, dancing, doubtless the recital of long stories, and exhibition of magic, even down to the contortions of the court buffoon and the grimaces of the dwarves. And Amuse the prince to see one of these wretched favourites leading to him by the paw a senosephalus larger than himself, while a mischievous monkey slyly pulled a tame and stately ibis by the tail. From time to time the great lord proceeded to inspect his domain. On these occasions he traveled in a kind of sedan chair supported by two mules yoked together, or he was born in a palanquin by some thirty men, while fanned by large flabella, or possibly he went up the Nile and the canals in his beautiful painted barge. The life of the Egyptian lords may be aptly described as in every respect an exact reproduction of the life of the pharaoh on a smaller scale. Inheritance in a direct or indirect line was the rule, but in every case of transmission the new lord had to receive the investiture of the sovereign either by letter or in person. The duties enforced by the feudal state do not appear to have been onerous. In the first place there was the regular payment of a tribute, proportionate to the extent and resources of the fife. In the next place there was military service. The vassal agreed to supply, when called upon, a fixed number of armed men, whom he himself commanded, unless he could offer a reasonable excuse such as illness or senile incapacity. Attendance at court was not obligatory. We notice, however, many nobles about the person of pharaoh, and there are numerous examples of princes, with whose lives we are familiar, filling offices which appear to have demanded at least a temporary residence in the palace, as, for instance, the charge of the royal wardrobe. When the king traveled the great vassals were compelled to entertain him and his suite, and to escort him to the frontier of their domain. On the occasion of such visits the king would often take away with him one of their sons to be brought up with his own children, an act which they on their part considered a great honour, while the king, on his, had a guarantee of their finality in the person of these hostages. Such of these young persons as returned to their father's roof when their education was finished, were usually most loyal to the reigning dynasty. They often brought back with them some maiden born in the purple, who consented to share their little provincial sovereignty, while in exchange one or more of their sisters entered the harem of the pharaoh. Marriage is made and marred in their turn the fortunes of the great feudal houses. Whether she were a princess or not, each woman received as her dowry a portion of territory, and enlarged by that amount her husband's little state, but the property she brought might in a few years be taken by her daughters as portions and enrich other houses. The five seldom could bear up against such dismemberment. It fell away piecemeal, and by the third or fourth generation had disappeared. Sometimes, however, it gained more than it lost in this matrimonial game, and extended its borders till they encroached on neighboring nomays or else completely absorbed them. There were always in the course of each reign several great principalities formed, or in the process of formation, whose chiefs might be said to hold in their hands the destinies of the country. Pharaoh himself was obliged to treat them with deference, and he purchased their allegiance by renewed and ever-increasing concessions. Their ambition was never satisfied. When they were loaded with favors, and did not venture to ask for more for themselves, they impudently demanded them for such of their children as they thought were poorly provided for. Their eldest son knew not the high favors which came from the king. Other princes were his privy counselors, his chosen friends, or foremost among his friends. He had no share in all this. Pharaoh took care not to reject a petition presented so humbly. He proceeded to lavish appointments, titles and estates, on the son in question. If necessity required it, he would even seek out a wife for him, who might give him, together with her hand, a property equal to that of his father. The majority of these great vassals secretly aspired to the crown. They frequently had reason to believe that they had some right to it, either through their mother or one of their ancestors. Had they combined against the reigning house, they could easily have gained the upper hand. But their mutual jealousies prevented this, and the overthrow of a dynasty to which they owed so much wood, for the most part, have profited them but little. As soon as one of them revolted, the remainder took arms in Pharaoh's defense, led his armies and fought his battles. If at times their ambition and greed harassed their suzerain, at least their power was at his service, and their self-interest at allegiance was often the means of delaying the downfall of his house. Two things were specially needful both for them and for Pharaoh in order to maintain or increase their authority, the protection of the gods, and a military organization which enabled them to mobilize the whole of their forces at the first signal. The celestial world was the faithful image of our own. It had its empires and its feudal organization, the arrangement of which corresponded to that of the terrestrial world. The gods who inhabited it were dependent upon the gifts of mortals, and the resources of each individual deity, and consequently his power, depended on the wealth and number of his worshippers. Anything influencing one had an immediate effect on the other. The gods dispensed happiness, health, and vigor to those who made them large offerings and instituted pious foundations. They lent their own weapons, and inspired them with needful strength to overcome their enemies. They even came down to assist in battle, and every great encounter of armies involved an invisible struggle among the mortals. The gods of the side which was victorious shared with it in the triumph, and received a tithe of the spoil as the price of their help. The gods of the vanquished were so much the poorer, their priests and their statues were reduced to slavery, and the destruction of their people entailed their own downfall. It was therefore to the special interest of every one in Egypt from the Pharaoh to the humblest of his vassals, to maintain the good will and power of the gods, so that their protection might be effectively ensured in the hour of danger. Buildings were taken to embellish their temples with obelisks, colossi, altars, and bar-reliefs. New buildings were added to the old. The parts threatened with ruin were restored or entirely rebuilt. Daily gifts were brought of every kind. Animals which were sacrificed on the spot. Bread, flowers, fruit, drinks, as well as perfumes, stuffs, vases, jewels, bricks or bars of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, which were all heaped up in the treasury within the recesses of the crypts. If a dignitary of high rank wished to perpetuate the remembrance of his honors or his services, and at the same time to procure for his double the benefit of endless prayers and sacrifices, he placed by special permission a statue of himself on a votive stelae in the part of the temple reserved for this purpose, in a courtyard, chamber, encircling passage, as at Karnak, or on the staircase of Osiris as in that leading up to the terrace in the sanctuary of Abidos. He then sealed a formal agreement with the priests, by which the latter engaged to perform a service in his name, in front of this commemorative monument, a stated number of times in the year, on the days fixed by universal observance or by local custom. For this purpose he assigned to them the annuities in kind, charges on his patrimonial estates, or in some cases, if he were a great lord, on the revenues of his fife, such as a fixed quantity of loaves and drinks for each of the celebrants, a fourth part of the sacrificial victim, a garment frequently also lands with their cattle, serfs, existing buildings, farming implements and produce, along with the conditions of service with which the lands were burdened. These gifts to the god, Notir Hattpu, were, it appears, affected by agreements analogous to those dealing with property in Mortmain in modern Egypt. In each nome they constituted, in addition to the original temporalities of the temple, a considerable domain, constantly enlarged by fresh endowments. The gods had no daughters for whom to provide, nor sons among whom to divide their inheritance. All that fell to them remained theirs for ever, and in the contracts were inserted implications threatening with terrible ills, in this world and the next, those who should abstract the smallest portion from them. Such menacist did not always prevent the king or the lords from laying hands on the temple revenues. Had this not been the case, Egypt would soon have become a sacerdotal country from one end to the other. Even when reduced by periodic usurpations, the domain of the gods formed, at all periods, about one third of the whole country. Its administration was not vested in a single body of priests, representing the whole of Egypt and recruited or ruled everywhere in the same fashion. There were as many bodies of priests as there were temples, and every temple preserved its independent constitution, with which the clergy of the neighboring temples had nothing to do. The only master they acknowledged was the Lord of the Territory on which the temple was built, either Pharaoh or one of his nobles. The tradition which made Pharaoh the head of the different worships in Egypt prevailed everywhere, but Pharaoh soared too far above this world to confine himself to the function of any one particular order of priests. He officiated before all the gods without being especially the minister of any, and only exerted his supremacy in order to make appointments to important sacerdotal posts in his domain. He reserved the high priesthood of the Memphite Ptah and that of Ra of Heliopolis, either for the princes of his own family or more often for his most faithful servants. They were the docile instruments of his will, through whom he exerted the influence of the gods, and disposed of their property without having the trouble of administering it. The feudal lords, less removed for mortal affairs than the Pharaoh, did not disdain to combine the priesthood of the temples dependent on them with the general supervision of the different worships practised on their lands. The princes of the Gizelnome, for instance, bore the title of directors of the prophets of all the gods, but were correctly speaking the prophets of Horus, of Kanumu, master of Herorot, and of Pachit, mistress of the Spios Artemidos. The religious suzerainty of princes was the complement of their civil and military power, and their ordinary income was augmented by some portion at least of the revenues which the lands and mortemain furnished annually. The subordinate sacerdotal functions were filled by professional priests whose status varied according to the gods they served, and the provinces in which they were located. Although between the mere priest and the chief prophet there were a number of grades to which the majority never attained, still the temples attracted many people from diverse sources, who once established in this calling of life not only never left it, but never rested until they had introduced into it the members of their families. The offices they filled were not necessarily hereditary, but the children, born and bred in the shelter of the sanctuary, almost always succeeded to the positions of their fathers, and certain families thus continuing in the same occupation for generations, at last came to be established as a sort of sacerdotal nobility. CHAPTER I. THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT PART VIII. The sacrifices supplied them with daily meat and drink. The temple buildings provided them with their lodging, and its revenues furnished them with the salary proportionate to their position. They were exempted from the ordinary taxes, from military service, and from forced labor. It is not surprising, therefore, that those who were not actually members of the priestly families strove to have at least a share in their advantages. The servitors, the workmen, and the employees who congregated about them and constituted the temple corporation, the scribes attached to the administration of the domains, and to the receipt of offerings, shared de facto, if not de jure, in the immunity of the priesthood, as a body they formed a separate religious society, side by side, but distinct from the civil population, and free for most of the burdens which weighed so heavily on the latter. The soldiers were far from possessing the wealth and influence of the clergy. Military service in Egypt was not universally compulsory, but rather the profession and privilege of a special class of whose origin, but little is known. Perhaps originally it comprised only the descendants of the conquering race, but in historic times it was not exclusively confined to the latter, and recruits were raised everywhere among the fellas, the Bedouin of the neighborhood, the Negroes, the Nubians, and even from among the prisoners of war or adventurers from beyond the sea. This motley collection of foreign mercenaries composed ordinarily the bodyguard of the king or of his barons, the permanent nucleus round which, in times of war, the levies of native recruits were rallied. Every Egyptian soldier received from the chief to whom he was attached, a holding of land for the maintenance of himself and his family. In the fifth century B.C., twelve A.R.A. of arable land was estimated as ample pay for each man, and tradition attributes to the fabulous Sostostris the law which fixed the pay at this rate. The soldiers were not taxed and were exempt from forced labor during the time that they were away from home on active service. With this exemption they were liable to the same charges as the rest of the population. Many among them possessed no other income and lived the precarious life of the fella, tilling, reaping, drawing water and pastoring their cattle in the interval between two musters. Others possessed of private fortunes left their holdings out at a moderate rate, which formed in addition to their patrimonial income. Lest they should forget the conditions upon which they possessed this military holding, and should regard themselves as absolute masters of it, they were seldom let long in possession of the same place. Herodotus asserts that their allotments were taken away yearly and replaced by others of equal extent. It is difficult to say if this law of perpetual change was always in force. At any rate it did not prevent the soldiers from forming themselves, in time, into a kind of aristocracy, which even kings and barons of highest rank could not ignore. They were enrolled in special registers with the indication of the holding which was temporarily assigned to them. A military scribe kept this register in every royal nome or principality. He superintended the redistribution of the lands, the registration of privileges, and in addition to his administrative functions, he had in time of war the command of the troops furnished by his own district, in which case he was assisted by a lieutenant, who as opportunity offered acted as his substitute in the office or on the battlefield. Military service was not hereditary, but its advantages, however trifling they may appear to us, seemed in the eyes of the fellows so great, that for the most part those who were engaged in it had their children also enrolled. While still young, the latter were taken to the barracks, where they were taught not only the use of the bow, the battle-axe, the mace, the lance, and the shield, but were instructed in such exercises as rendered the body supple, and prepared them for maneuvering, regimental marching, running, jumping, and wrestling, either with closed or open hand. They prepared themselves for battle by a regular war dance, pirouetting, leaping, and brandishing their bows and quivers in the air. Their training being finished, they were incorporated into local companies, and invested with their privileges. When they were required for service, part or the whole of the class was mustard. Arms kept in the arsenal were distributed among them, and they were conveyed in boats to the scene of action. The Egyptians were not martial by temperament. They became soldiers rather from interest than inclination. The power of Pharaoh and his barons rested entirely upon these two classes, the priests and the soldiers, the remainder, the commonality and the peasantry, were in their hands merely an inert mass, to be taxed and subjected to forced labor at will. The slaves were probably regarded as of little importance. The bulk of the people consisted of free families who were at liberty to dispose of themselves in their goods. Every fellow and townsman in the service of the king, or of one of his great nobles, could leave his work in his village when he pleased, could pass from the domain in which he was born into a different one, and could traverse the country from one end to the other, as the Egyptians of today still do. His absence entailed neither loss of goods nor persecution of the relatives he left behind, and he himself had punishment to fear only when he left the Nile Valley without permission, to reside for some time in a foreign land. But although this independence and liberty were in accordance with the laws and customs of the land, yet they gave rise to inconveniences from which it was difficult to escape in practical life. Every Egyptian, the king accepted, was obliged, in order to get on in life, to depend on one more powerful than himself, whom he called his master. The feudal lord was proud to recognize Pharaoh as his master, and he himself was master of the soldiers and priests in his own petty state. From the top to the bottom of the social scale, every free man acknowledged a master, who secured to him justice and protection in exchange for his obedience and fealty. The moment an Egyptian tried to withdraw himself from this subjection, the peace of his life was at an end. He became a man without a master, and therefore without a recognized protector. Anyone might stop him on the way, steal his cattle, merchandise or property on the most trivial pretext, and if he attempted to protest, might beat him with an almost certain impunity. The only resource of the victim was to sit at the gate of the palace, waiting to appeal for justice till the lord or king should appear. If by chance, after many rebuffs, his humble petition were granted, it was only the beginning of fresh troubles. Even if the justice of the cause were indisputable, the fact that he was a man without home or master inspired his judges with an obstinate mistrust, and delayed the satisfaction of his claims. In vain he followed his judges with his complaints and flatteries, chanting their virtues in every key. Thou art the father of the unfortunate, the husband of the widow, the brother of the orphan, the clothing of the motherless. Enable me to proclaim thy name as a law throughout the land. Good Lord, guide without caprice, great without littleness, thou who destroyest falsehood and causes truth to be, come at the words of my mouth, I speak, listen and do justice. O generous one, generous of the generous, destroy the cause of my trouble. Here I am, uplift me, judge me, for behold me a suppliant before thee. If he were an eloquent speaker and the judge were inclined to listen, he was willingly heard, but his cause made no progress, and delays, counted on by his adversary, affected his ruin. The religious law, no doubt, prescribed equitable treatment for all devotees of Osiris, and condemned the slightest departure from justice as one of the gravest sins, even in the case of a great noble, or in that of the king himself. But how could impartiality be shown when the one was the recognized protector, the master of the culprit, while the plaintiff was a bagabond, attached to no one, a man without a master? The populations of the towns included many privileged persons other than the soldiers, priests, or those engaged in the service of the temples. Those employed in royal or feudal administration, from the superintendent of the storehouse to the humblest scribe, though perhaps not entirely exempt from forced labor, had but a small part of it to bear. These employees constituted a middle class of several grades, and enjoyed a fixed income and regular employment. They were fairly well educated, very self-satisfied, and always ready to declare loudly their superiority over any who were obliged to gain their living by manual labor. Each class of workmen recognized one or more chiefs, the shoemakers, their master shoemakers, the masons, their master masons, the blacksmiths, their master blacksmiths, who looked after their interest and represented them before the local authorities. It was said among the Greeks that even robbers were united in a corporation like the others, and maintained and accredited superior as their representative with the police, to discuss the somewhat delicate questions which the practice of their trade gave occasion to. When the members of the association had stolen any object of value, it was to this superior that the person robbed resorted, in order to regain possession of it. It was he who fixed the amount required for its redemption, and returned it without fail, upon the payment of this sum. Most of the workmen who formed a state corporation lodged, or at least all of them had their stalls, in the same quarter or street, under the direction of their chief. Besides the pole and the house tax, they were subject to a special toll, a trade license which they paid in products of their commerce or industry.