The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

any stranger who should land. When the Phoenicians from

pirates had become merchants they were allowed to trade with Egypt by

way of the land, and with this they were content. It was left for another

people to open up the trade by sea.

 

Ionia was the fairest province of Asiatic Greece. It lay opposite to

Athens, its motherland. The same soft blue waters, the same fragrant

breezes caressed their shores by turn. It was celebrated by the poets as

one of the gardens of the world. There the black soil granted a rich

harvest and the fruit hung heavily on the branches. It was the birthplace

of poetry, of history, of philosophy, and of art. It was there that the

Homeric poems were composed. It was there that men first cast off the

chains of authority and sought in Nature the materials of a creed.

 

It was, however, as a seafaring and commercial people that the Ionians

first obtained renown. They served on board Phoenician vessels and

laboured in the dockyards of Tyre and Sidon until they learnt how to

build the “sea-horses” for themselves, and how to navigate by that small

but constant star which the Tyrians had discovered in the constellation of

the Little Bear. They took to the sea on their own account, and in Egypt

they found a good market. The wine and oil of Palestine, which the

Phoenicians imported, were expensive luxuries; the lower classes drank

only the fermented sap of the palm-tree and barley beer, and had only

castor oil, with which they rubbed their bodies, but with which, for

obvious reasons, they could not cook their food. The Ionians were able to

sell red wine and sweet oil at a much lower price, for in the first place

they had vineyards and olive groves of their own, and secondly such

bulky wares could be brought by sea more cheaply than by land.

 

The Greeks first appeared on the Egyptian coast as pirates clad in bronze,

next as smugglers, welcomed by the people, but in opposition to the laws,

and lastly as allies and honoured friends. They took advantage of the

confusion which followed the departure of Sabaco to push up the Nile

with thirty vessels, each of fifty oars, and established factories upon its

banks. They negotiated with Psammiticus, who ascertained that their

country produced not only oil but men. He ordered a cargo, and

transports arrived with troops. Europeans for the first time entered the

valley of the Nile. Their gallantry and discipline were irresistible, and the

empire of the Pharaohs was restored.

 

But now commenced a new regime. There succeeded to the throne a

series of kings who were not related to the ancient Pharaohs, who were

not always men of noble birth, who were not even good Egyptians. They

were called Phil-Hellenes, or Lovers of the Greeks. Of these

Psammiticus was the founder and the first. He moved Egypt towards the

sea. He placed his capital near the mouth of the river, that the Greek

ships might anchor beneath its walls. This new city of Sais, being distant

from the quarries, was built of bricks from the black mud of the Nile, but

it was adorned with spoils from the forsaken Memphis. Chapels,

obelisks, and sphinxes were brought down on rafts. There was also a

kind of Renaissance under the new kings; for a short time the arts again

became alive. Psammiticus retained the soldiers who had fought his

battles, and sent children to the camp to be taught Greek. Hence rose a

class who acted as brokers, interpreters, and ciceroni to the travellers who

soon crowded into Egypt. The king encouraged such visits, and gave

safe-conducts to those who desired to pass into the interior.

 

All this was a cause of deep offence to the people of the land. They

regarded their country as a temple, and all strangers as impure. And now

they saw men whose swords had been reddened with Egyptian blood

swaggering as conquerors through the streets, pointing with derision at

the sacred animals, eating things strangled and unclean. The warriors

were those who suffered most. As a caste they still survived, but all their

power and prestige were gone. In battle the foreigners were assigned the

post of honour—the right wing. In times of peace the foreigners were the

favourite regiments—the household troops, the Guards. While the royals

lived merrily at Sais crowned with garlands of the papyrus, and revelling

at banquets to the music of the flute, the native troops were stationed on

the hot and dismal frontiers of the desert; year followed year, and they

were not relieved. Such a state of things was no longer to be borne. One

king had robbed them of their lands, and now another had robbed them of

their honour. They were no longer soldiers, they were slaves; they

determined to leave the country in which they were despised, and to seek

a better fortune in the Sudan. In number two hundred thousand, they

gathered themselves together and began their march.

 

They were soon overtaken by envoys from the king, who had no desire to

lose an army. The soldiers were entreated to return and not to desert their

fatherland. They cried out, beating their shields and shaking their spears,

that they would soon get another fatherland. Then the messengers began

to speak of their wives and little ones at home. Would they leave them

also, and go wifeless and childless to a savage land? But one of the

soldiers explained, with a coarse gesture, that they had the means of

producing families wherever they might go. This ended the conference.

Psammiticus pursued them with his Ionians, but could not overtake them.

In the wastes of Nubia there may yet be seen a colossal statue, on the

right leg of which is an inscription in Greek announcing that it was there

they gave up the chase. The Egyptian soldiers arrived at Meroe in safety;

the king presented them with a province which had rebelled. They drove

out the men, married the women, and did much to civilise the native

tribes.

 

In the meantime Psammiticus and his successors opened wider and wider

the gloomy portals of the land. The town of Naucratis was set apart, like

Canton, for the foreign trade. Nine independent Greek cities had their

separate establishments within that town, and their magistrates and

consuls, who administered their respective laws. The merchants met in

the Hellenion, which was half temple, half exchange, to transact their

business and offer sacrifices to the gods. Naucratis was in all respects a

European town. There the garlic-chewing sailors, when they came on

shore, could enjoy a holiday in the true Greek style. They could stroll in

the market-place, where the money-changers sat before their tables and

the wine merchants ran about with sample flasks under their arms, and

where garlands of flowers, strange-looking fish, and heaps of purple dates

were set out for sale. They could resort to the barbers’ shops and gather

the gossip of the day, or to taverns where quail fighting was always going

on. Nor were the chief ornaments of seaport society wanting to grace the

scene. No Egyptian girl, as Herodotus discovered, would kiss a Greek.

But certain benevolent and enterprising men had imported a number of

Heterae or “lady-friends,” the most famous of whom was Rhodopis, “the

rosy-faced,” with whom Sappho’s brother fell in love, and whom the

poetess lampooned.

 

The foreign policy of Egypt was now completely changed. A long period

of seclusion had followed the conquests of the new empire. But the

battle-pieces of the ancient time still glowed upon the temple walls. With

their vivid colours and animated scenes they seemed to incite the modern

Pharaohs to heroic deeds. The throne was surrounded by warlike and

restless men. It was determined that Egypt should become a naval power.

For this, timber was indispensable, and the forests of Lebanon must be

seized. War was carried to the continent. Syria was reduced. A garrison

was planted on the banks of the Euphrates. A navy was erected in the

Mediterranean Sea, and the Tyrians were defeated in a great sea-battle.

The Suez Canal was opened for the first time, and an exploring

expedition circumnavigated Africa.

 

Yet, for all that and all that, the Egyptian people were not content. The

victories won by mercenary troops excited little patriotic pride, and the

least reverse occasioned the most gloomy forebodings, the most serious

discontent. The Egyptians indeed had good cause to be alarmed—the

Phil-Hellenes were playing at a dangerous game. Times had changed

since Sesostris overran Asia. A great power had arisen on the banks of

the Tigris; a greater power still on the banks of the Euphrates. They had

narrowly escaped Sennacherib when Nineveh was in its glory, and now

Babylon had arisen and Nebuchadnezzar had drawn the sword. For a

long time Chaldea and Egypt fought over Syria, their battle-ground and

their prey. At last came the decisive day of Carchemish. The

Phoenicians, the Syrians, and the Jews obtained new masters; the

Egyptians were driven out of Asia.

 

Yet even then the kings were not cured of their taste for war. An

expedition was sent against Cyrene, a Greek kingdom on the northern

coast of Africa. It was unsuccessful, and the sullen disaffection which

had so long smouldered burst forth into flame. The king was killed, and

Amasis, a man of the people, was placed upon the throne.

 

This monarch did not go to war, and he contrived to favour the Greeks

without offending the prejudices of his fellow-countrymen. He was,

however, a true Phil-Hellene; he encircled himself with a bodyguard of

Greeks; he married a princess of Cyrene; he gave a handsome

subscription to the fund for rebuilding the temple at Delphi; he extended

the commerce of Egypt and improved its manufactures. The liberal

policy in trade which he pursued had the most satisfactory results. Never

had Egypt been so rich as she was then. But she was defenceless; she had

lost her arms. It is probable that under Amasis she was a vassal of

Babylon, paying tribute every year; and now a time was coming when

gold could no longer purchase repose, when the horrified people would

see their temples stripped, their idols dashed to pieces, their sacred

animals murdered, their priests scourged, and the embalmed body of their

king snatched from its last resting-place and flung upon the flames.

 

A vast wilderness extends from the centre of Africa to the jungles of

Bengal. It consists of rugged mountain and of sandy wastes; it is

traversed by three river basins or valley plains.

 

In its centre is the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates. On its east is the

basin of the Indus; on its west is the basin of the Nile. Each of these river

systems is enclosed by deserts. The whole region may be pictured to the

mind as a broad yellow field with three green streaks running north and

south.

 

Egypt, Babylonia, and India proper, or the Punjab, are the primeval

countries of the ancient world. In these three desert-bound, river-watered

valleys we find, in the earliest dawn of history, civilisation growing wild.

Each in a similar manner had been fostered and tortured by Nature into

progress; in each existed a people skilled in the management of land,

acquainted with manufactures, and possessing some knowledge of

practical science and of art.

 

The civilisation of India was the youngest of the three, yet Egypt and

Chaldea were commercially its vassals and dependents. India offered for

sale articles not elsewhere to be found—the shining warts of the oyster;

glass-like stones dug up out of the bowels of the earth, or gathered in the

beds of dried-up brooks; linen which was plucked as a blossom from a

tree, and manufactured into cloth as white as snow; transparent