The History of Egypt
From the old Greek writers and from records of the monuments we have a fairly complete story of this wonderful country and people.
First Monarch of the Old Kingdom
The first king of Egypt, Menes, whose date is set at 3400 years before Christ, is said to have founded the city of Memphis, near the site of the modern Cairo, which became the capital of Egypt; Thebes, in Upper (or Southern) Egypt, afterwards taking this position.
The building of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, near Cairo, is ascribed to a king named Cheops (kē´ops) by Herodotus, otherwise called Khufu (kōō´fōō), according to the hieroglyphic royal name found inside the structure. He is believed to have reigned about the twenty-eighth century before Christ. Cheops was the second and most celebrated monarch in the fourth of the dynasties which ruled at Memphis. The third king in this list, Khafra (khaf´rä) also founded a pyramid, as did the fourth, Menkaura (men-kȧ-rä´) or Nycerinus, a sovereign beloved and praised in poetry for his goodness. His mummified remains are in the British Museum. In the sixth dynasty was a female sovereign noted for her beauty, named Nitocris, who built a pyramid and reigned at Memphis. The monarchy then was for some time divided, the chief power being held by the kings ruling at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, who developed great power, and constructed many notable works.
The Invasion and Rule of the Shepherd-Kings
About 1800 B. C. the Hyksos or Shepherd-kings, said to be of Arabian race, conquered Lower Egypt, and then subdued the kingdom of Thebes, ruling the whole land down to 1580 B. C. Probably to this period the story of Joseph in Egypt belongs. The shepherd-kings [347] were expelled with the aid of the Ethiopians from the south, and then came the great period of Egyptian history. During this time, Egypt was a great empire with Thebes for its capital. Under Thutmose III., Amenhotep III. and IV., and Seti I., Egypt rose to great heights of development and art.
Great Epoch of Rameses II.
The greatest monarch of this, or perhaps of any, age of Egypt’s history was Rameses the Great (called by the Greeks, Sesostris). To him have been attributed many of the monuments and pictures which represent triumphal processions and captives. Rameses the Great reigned for nearly seventy years in the fourteenth century before Christ. Among his many monuments two are chiefly remarkable, the Memnonium or palace-temple at Thebes, and the great rock-cut temple of Abu-Simbel in Nubia. These architectural works possess an interest more historical than that of the pyramids. He is said to have subdued Ethiopia, carried his arms beyond the Euphrates eastward, and among the Thracians in southeast Europe. The monumental sculptures and paintings tell us of war-galleys of Egypt in the Indian seas, and of Ethiopian tribute paid in ebony and ivory and gold, in apes and birds of prey, and even in giraffes from inner Africa. Other sculptures display the Egyptians fighting with success against Asiatic foes. To this monarch was due a vast system of irrigation by canals for conveying the waters of the Nile to every part of the country.
The next sovereign of note was Sheshanq (Shi´shak), who, in the latter part of the tenth century before Christ, took and plundered Jerusalem. The empire continued to decline, and was entirely reduced by Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, and became for a time tributary to the Assyrian monarchs. In the early part of the reign of the king Psametik I. (653-610 B. C.)
Important Reign of Psametik Follows an Age of Decay
We find Egypt in connection, for the first time in its history, with foreign countries, otherwise than as conquering or conquered. Psametik I. (653-610 B. C.) had in his pay a body of Greek mercenaries, and sought to introduce the Greek language among his subjects. In jealousy at this, the great military caste of Egypt emigrated into Ethiopia, and left the king dependent on his foreign troops, with whom he successfully warred in Syria and Phœnicia, and likewise succeeded in making Egypt independent of Assyria.
Neku, son of Psametik (610-595 B. C.), was an enterprising prince, who built fleets on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and strove to join the Nile, by a canal, with the Red Sea. Africa was circumnavigated by Phœnicians in his service, who sailed from the Arabian Gulf, and passed round by the Straits of Gibraltar to the mouths of the Nile. He was the king who defeated Josiah, king of Judah, sustaining afterward defeat from Nebuchadnezzar II., king of Babylon, at Carchemish.
In 590 B. C., came Apries (the Pharaoh-Hophra of Scripture), who conquered Sidon, and was an ally of Zedekiah, king of Judah, against Nebuchadnezzar. After being repulsed with severe loss in an attack on the Greek colony of Cyrene, west of Egypt, Apries was dethroned by Aahmes II., who reigned from 570 to 526 B. C. His prosperous rule was marked by a closer intercourse with the Greeks.
Egypt Is Conquered by Persia
Psametik III., son of Aahmes, inherited a quarrel of his father with Cambyses, king of Persia, who invaded and conquered Egypt in 525 B. C. For nearly two centuries afterwards the history of Egypt is marked, disastrously, by constant struggles between the people and their Persian conquerors, and, in a more favorable and interesting way, by the growing intercourse between the land of the Nile and the Greeks. Greek historians and philosophers—Herodotus and Anaxagoras and Plato—visited the country, and took back stores of information on its wonders, its culture, and its faith.
Conquered by Alexander the Great and Passes under Greek Rule
In 332 B. C., Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great; and its new capital, the great Alexandria, destined to a lasting literary and commercial renown, was founded. Subsequently it passed under Greek rule, and the language of the government, and the administration and philosophy, became essentially Greek. The court of the Ptolemies became the center of learning and philosophy; and Ptolemy Philadelphus, successful in his external wars, built the Museum, founded the library of Alexandria. He purchased the most valuable manuscripts, engaged the most celebrated professors, and had the Septuagint translation made of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Egyptian history of Manetho drawn up. His successor, Euergetes, pushed the southern limits of his empire to Axum. Philopator (221-204 B. C.) warred with Antiochus, persecuted the Jews, and encouraged learning. Epphanes, (204-180 B. C.) encountered repeated rebellions and was succeeded by Philometor (180-145 B. C.) and Euergetes II. (145-116 B. C.), by Soter II. and Cleopatra till 106 B. C., and by Alexander (87 B. C.), under whom Thebes rebelled; then by Cleopatra, Berenice, Alexander II. (80 B. C.), and Neos Dionysus (51 B. C.) and finally by the famous Cleopatra who maintained her power only through her personal influence with Julius Cæsar and Mark Antony.
Egypt Becomes a Roman Province
On the defeat of Mark Antony by Augustus, B. C. 30, Egypt became a province of Rome. It was still a Greek state, and Alexandria was the chief seat of Greek learning and science. On the spread of Christianity the old Egyptian doctrines lost their sway. Now arose in Alexandria the Christian catechetical school, which produced Clemens and Origen. The sects of Gnostics united astrology and magic with religion. The school of Alexandrian Platonics produced Plotinus and Proclus. Monasteries were built all over Egypt; Christian monks took [348] the place of the pagan hermits, and the Bible was translated into Coptic.
Passes under Mohammedan Rule
On the division of the great Roman Empire (A. D. 395), in the time of Theodosius, into the Western and Eastern Empires, Egypt became a province of the latter, and sank deeper and deeper in barbarism and weakness. It was conquered in 640 A. D. by the Saracens under Caliph Omar. As a province of the caliphs it was under the government of the celebrated Abbasides—Haroun-al-Rashid and Al-Mamun—and that of the heroic Sultan Saladin. The last dynasty was, however, overthrown by the Mamelukes (1250); and the Mamelukes in their turn were conquered by the Turks (1516-17). The Mamelukes made repeated attempts to cast off the Turkish yoke, and had virtually done so by the end of the eighteenth century, when the French conquered Egypt and held it till 1801, when they were driven out by the British.
Becomes a Pawn of Turkey, France and England
On the expulsion of the French a Turkish force under Mehemet Ali Bey took possession of the country. Mehemet Ali was made pasha, and being a man of great ability, administered the country vigorously and greatly extended the Egyptian territories. At length he broke with the Porte, and after gaining a decisive victory over the Ottoman troops in Syria in 1839 he was acknowledged by the sultan as viceroy of Egypt, with the right of succession in his family.
By the Anglo-French agreement of 1904 France formally recognized the predominant position of Great Britain, and agreed in no way to obstruct British action in the government of Egypt. The European War of 1914-1916 has again thrown Egypt into the balance, and its political future seems to be entirely a matter of the fortunes of war and diplomacy.