The Essential Works of George Rawlinson: Egypt, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Phoenicia, Parthia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Babylon, Persia, Sasanian Empire & Herodotus' Histories. George Rawlinson
in the world at the time—an oblong square, one hundred and forty-three feet long by fifty-three feet wide, or nearly half as large again as the nave of Canterbury Cathedral. The whole of the apartment was roofed in with slabs of solid stone; it was divided in its longest direction into five avenues or vistas by means of rows of pillars and piers, the former being towards the centre, and attaining a height of thirty feet, with bell capitals, and the latter towards the sides, with a height of twenty feet. This arrangement enabled the building to be lighted by means of a clerestory, in the manner shown by the accompanying woodcut. In connection with this noble hall, on three sides of it, northwards, eastwards, and southwards, Thothmes further erected chambers and corridors, partly open, partly supported by pillars, which might form convenient store-chambers for the vestments of the priests and the offerings of the people.
Thothmes also added propylæa to the temple on the south, and erected in front of the grand entrance which was (as usual) between the pylons of the propylæa, two or perhaps four great obelisks, one of which exists to the present day, and is the largest and most magnificent of all such monuments now extant. It stands in front of the Church of St. John Lateran at Rome, and has a height of a hundred and five feet, exclusive of the base, with a width diminishing from nine feet six inches to eight feet seven inches. It is estimated to weigh above four hundred and fifty tons, and is covered with well-cut hieroglyphics. No other obelisk approaches within twelve feet of its elevation, or within fifty tons of its weight. Yet, if we may believe an inscription of Thothmes, found on the spot, the pair of obelisks whereof this was one shrank into insignificance in comparison with another pair, also placed by him before his propylæa, the height of which was one hundred and eight cubits, or one hundred and sixty-two feet, and their weight consequently from seven hundred to eight hundred tons! As no trace has been found of these monsters, and as it seems almost impossible that they should have been removed, and highly improbable that they could have been broken up without leaving some indication of their existence, perhaps we may conclude that they were designed rather than executed, and that the inscription was set up in anticipation of an achievement contemplated but never effected.
Other erections of the Great Thothmes are the enclosure of the famous Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, the temple of Phthah at Thebes, the small temple at Medinet-Abou, a temple to Kneph adorned with obelisks at Elephantine, and a series of temples and monuments erected at Ombos, Esneh, Abydos, Coptos, Denderah, Eileithyia, Hermonthis, and Memphis in Egypt, and at Amada, Corte, Talmis, Pselcis, Semneh, Koummeh, and Napata in Nubia. Extensive ruins of many of these buildings still remain, particularly at Koummeh, Semneh, Napata, Denderah, and Ombos. Altogether, Thothmes III. is pronounced to have left behind him more monuments than any other Pharaoh excepting Rameses II., and though occasionally showing himself, as a builder, somewhat capricious and whimsical, still, on the whole, to have worked in a pure style and proved that he was not deficient in good taste.20
It has happened, moreover, by a curious train of circumstances, that Thothmes III. is, of all the Pharaohs, the one whose great works are most widely diffused, and display Egyptian skill and taste to the largest populations, and in the most important cities, of the modern world. Rome, as we have seen, possesses his grandest obelisk, which is at the same time the greatest of all extant monoliths. The millions who have flocked to Rome in all ages have learnt the lesson of Egyptian greatness from the monument erected before the Church of St. John Lateran. Constantinople holds an obelisk of Thothmes III., which is placed in the middle of the Atmeidan. London has put on its embankment, half-way between St. Paul's and the Palace and Abbey of Westminster, another obelisk of the same monarch, erected originally at Heliopolis, thence removed to Alexandria by Augustus, and now adorning the banks of the Thames, nearly in the centre of the most populous city that the world has ever seen. The companion monument, after having, similarly, stood at Heliopolis for fifteen centuries, and then at Alexandria for eighteen, has crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and now teaches the million residents, and the tens of thousands of visitors, of New York what great things could be done by the Egyptian engineers and artists of the time of the eighteenth dynasty.
Thothmes III. has been called "the Alexander of Egyptian history." The phrase is at once exaggerated and misleading. It is exaggerated as applied to his military ability; for, though beyond a doubt this monarch was by far the greatest of Egyptian conquerors, and possessed considerable military talent, much personal bravery, and an energy that has seldom been exceeded, yet, on the other hand, his task was trivial as compared with that of the Macedonian general, and his achievements insignificant. Instead of plunging with a small force into the midst of populous countries, and contending with armies ten or twenty times as numerous as his own, defeating them, and utterly subduing a vast empire, Thothmes marched at the head of a numerous disciplined army into thinly peopled regions, governed by petty chiefs jealous one of another, fought scarcely a single great battle, and succeeded in conquering two regions of a moderate size, Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, as far as the Khabour river. Alexander overran and subdued the entire tract between the Ægean and the Sutlej, the Persian Gulf and the Oxus. He conquered Egypt, and founded a dynasty there which endured for nearly three centuries. Thothmes subdued not a tenth part of the space, and the empire which he established did not endure for much more than a century. It is thus absurd to compare Thothmes III. to Alexander the Great as a conqueror.
Alexander was, besides, much more than a conqueror; he was a first-rate administrator. Had he lived twenty years longer he would probably have built up a universal monarchy, which might have lasted for a millenium. As it was, he so organized the East that it continued for nearly three centuries mainly under Greek rule, in the hands of the monarchs who are known as his "successors." Thothmes III., on the contrary, organized nothing. He left his conquests in such a condition that they, all of them, revolted at his death. His successor had to reconquer all the countries that had submitted to his father, and to re-establish over them the Egyptian sovereignty.
In person the great Egyptian monarch was not remarkable. He had a long, well-shaped, and somewhat delicate nose, which was almost in line with his forehead, an eye prominent and larger than that of most Egyptians, a shortish upper lip, a resolute mouth with rather over-full lips, and a rounded, slightly retreating chin. The expression of his portrait statues is grave and serious, but lacks strength and determination. Indeed, there is something about the whole countenance that is a little womanish, though his character certainly presents no appearance of effeminacy. He died after a reign of fifty-four years, according to his own reckoning, having practically exercised the sovereign power for about thirty-two of the fifty-four. His age at his death must have been about sixty.
During these stirring times, what were the children of Israel doing? We have supposed that Joseph was minister of the last of the Shepherd Kings, under whose reign his people had entered upon the peaceful occupation of the land of Goshen, where they were received with hospitality by a population of the same simple pastoral habits with themselves; and it seems probable that, under Thothmes III., they were increasing abundantly and waxing mighty, and that the land between the Sebennytic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile was gradually being filled by them. Their period of severe oppression had not yet begun; there had as yet arisen no sufficient reason for any measures of repression, such as were pursued by the new king who "knew not Joseph." The name and renown of the great minister seems still to have protected his kinsmen in the peaceful enjoyment of their privileges in the land that must by this time have lost for them most of its strangeness.
Thothmes III. was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep, whom historians commonly term Amenophis the Second. This king was a warrior like his father, and succeeded in reducing, without much difficulty, the various nations that had thrown off the authority of Egypt on receiving the news of his father's death. He even carried his arms, according to some, as far as Nineveh, which he claims to have besieged and taken; he does not, however, mention the Assyrians as his opponents. His contests were with the Naïri, the Rutennu, and the Shasu (Arabs)