The land in Egypt upon which the institution of castes rested belonged in fee only to the king, the priests, and the soldiers. We know from Genesis (xlvii. 96) that all other proprietors of the soil had surrendered their rights to the crown, and received their lands again subject to an annual rent of 1/5 of the produce. The priests we know (Genes. l. c.), the soldiers we infer (Diod. i. 74), retained their absolute ownership; and in so productive a country as Egypt the husbandman was too important a person to be deprived at once of all his political rights. Be was infact an integral although an inferior section of the war-caste. The privileged orders however were the king, the priest, the soldier: — 1. The King was at first elective, and always a member of the priesthood. He afterwards became hereditary, and was taken indifferently from the sacerdotal and military orders. If however he were by birth a soldier, he was adopted on his accession by the priests. Even the Ptolemies were not allowed to reign without such previous adoption. His initiation into the sacred mysteries was represented on monuments by the tau, the emblem of life and the key of secrecy, impressed upon his lips (Plut, de Is. et Osir. p. 354, B.; Plat. Rep. ii. p. 290). The king, when not engaged in war, was occupied is jurisdiction and the service of religion. The royal life was one long ceremony. His rising and his lying down; his meals, his recreations, and the order of his employments, were rigidly prescribed to him. Some liberty in law-making indeed was allowed him, since we read of the laws of Sesostris, Anasis, and other Egyptian rulers: and, with vigorous occupants of the throne, it is probable that the soldier occasionally transgressed the priestly ordinances. As but few, however, of the Egyptian monarchs seem to have grossly abused their power, we may conclude that the hierarchy at least tempered royal despotism. In paintings the king is always represented as many degrees taller and more robust than his subject warriors. A thousand fly before him, and he holds strings of prisoners by the hair. The Egyptian king wears also the emblems and sometimes even the features of the gods; and it is frequently difficult to distinguish on the monuments Swortaaen, Amunopht, &c. from Osiris. It is remarkable that females were not excluded from a throne so sacerdotal. A queen, Nitocris, occurs in the sixth dynasty; another, Scemiophris, in the tenth, and other examples are found in the sculptarv. On the decease of a sovereign a kind of posthumus judgment was exercised on his character and government. His embalmed body was placed in the sepulchre, and all men were permitted to bring accusations against him. Virtuous princes received a species of deification: condemned princes were debarred from sepulture. 2. The Priests however were, in ordinary times, the real governing body of Egypt. Their lands were |
superfluous, neither does it seem to have been peculiarly burdensome to the nation, since it derived its support from regular taxes and from its proprietary lands. Nowhere in the ancient world was the number of temples so great as in Egypt: nowhere were there so many religious festivals; nowhere was ordinary life so intimately blended with religion. The priest therefore was mixed up in affairs of the market, the law court, the shop, the house, in addition to his proper vocation in the temple. His life was the reverse of ascetic: in the climate of Egypt frequent ablutions, linen garments, papyrus sandals, were luxuries, — only polygamy was forbidden him. But he was enjoined to marry, and the son succeeded the fatther in the sacred office (Herod, ii. 143). Herodotus (comp. ii. 35, 55) contradicts himself in saying that females could not fulfil sacerdotal duties, — women might be incapable of the highest offices, but both sculptures and documents prove, that they were employed in many of the minor duties connected with the temples. 3. The Soldiers, The whole military force of Egypt amounted to 410,000 men (Herod, ii. 165-166; Diod. i. 54). It was divided into two corps, the Calasirians and the Hermotybians. The former were the more numerous, and in the most flourishing era of Egypt, the 18th and 19th dynasties, were estimated at 250,000 men. Each of these divisions furnished a thousand men annually to perform the duty of royal body guards. During the term of their attendance they received from the king daily rations of bread, beef, and wine. When summoned to the field or to garrison duty, each soldier provided himself with the necessary arms and baggage. The principal garrisons of Egypt were on its southern and eastern borders, at Syene and Elephantine, at Hieracompolis and Eilethyas, which towns, on opposite sides of the river, commanded the Nile-valley above Thebes, and at Marea and Peluaium. The western firontier was, until Egypt stretched to the Cyrenaica, guarded sufficiently by the Libyan desert. In time of peace the troops who were not in garrisons or at court were settled in various nomes principally east of the Nile, and in the Delta; since it was in that quarter Egypt was most exposed to invasion from the pastoral Arabs or the yet more formidable nomade tribes of Assyria and Palestine. According to Herodotus (ii. 168), each soldier was allowed 12 arourae of land, or about six acres free from all charge or tribute, from which allotment he defrayed the cost of his arms and equipment To the Egyptian soldier |
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