A Manual of Ancient History. M. E. Thalheimer
the latter including goat-herds and swine-herds, which last were considered lowest of all.
181. The land, at least under the new empire, belonged exclusively to the king, the priests, and the soldiers. In the time when Joseph the Hebrew was prime minister, all other proprietors surrendered their lands to the crown,[18] retaining possession of them only on condition of paying a yearly rent of one-fifth of the produce.
182. The king was the representative of deity, and thus the head not only of the government but of the religion of the state. His title, Phrah (Pharaoh), signifying the Sun, pronounced him the emblem of the god of light. It was his right and office to preside over the sacrifice and pour out libations to the gods.
183. On account of his great responsibilities, the king of Egypt was allowed less freedom in personal habits than the meanest of his subjects. The sacred books contained minute regulations for his food, drink, and dress, and the employment of his time. No indulgence of any kind was permitted to be carried to excess. No slave or hireling was allowed to hold office about his person, lest he should imbibe ideas unworthy of a prince; but noblemen of the highest rank were alone privileged to attend him. The ritual of every morning’s worship chanted the virtues of former kings, and reminded him of his own duties. After death his body was placed in an open court, where all his subjects might come with accusations; and if his conduct in life was proved to have been unworthy his high station, he was forever excluded from the sepulcher of his fathers.
184. The priestly order possessed great power in the state, and, so far as the sovereign was concerned, we can not deny that they used it well. They were remarkable for their simple and temperate habits of living. So careful were they that the body should “sit lightly upon the soul,” that they took food only of the plainest quality and limited amount, abstaining from many articles, such as fish, mutton, swine’s flesh, beans, peas, garlic, leeks, and onions, which were in use among the common people. They bathed twice a day and twice during the night—some of the more strict, in water that had been tasted by their sacred bird, the ibis, that they might have undoubted evidence of its cleanliness. By this example of abstinence, purity, and humility, as well as by their reputation for learning, the Egyptian priests established almost unlimited control over the people. Their knowledge of physical science enabled them, by optical illusions and other tricks, to excite the terror and superstitious awe of their ignorant spectators. Nor did their reputed power end with this life, for they could refuse to any man the passport to the “outer world,” which alone could secure his eternal happiness.
185. The science of medicine was cultivated by the priests in even the remotest ages. The universal practice of embalming was exercised by physicians, and this enabled them to study the effects of various diseases, by examination of the body after death. Asiatic monarchs sent to Egypt for their physicians, and the prolific soil of the Nile Valley supplied drugs for all the world. To this day, the characters used by apothecaries to denote drams and grains are Egyptian ciphers as adopted by the Arabs.
186. The soldiers, when not engaged in service either in foreign wars, in garrisons, or at court, were settled on their own lands. These were situated chiefly east of the Nile or in the Delta, since it was in these quarters that the country was most exposed to hostile invasions. Each soldier was allotted about six acres of land, free from all tax or tribute. From its proceeds he defrayed the expense of his own arms and equipment.
187. Upon the walls of their tombs are found vivid delineations of the daily life of the Egyptians. Their industries, such as glass-blowing, linen-weaving, rope-making, etc., as well as their common recreations of hunting, fishing, ball-playing, wrestling, and domestic scenes, as in the entertainment of company, are all represented in sculpture or paintings upon the walls of Thebes or Beni-hassan. Dolls and other toys of children are found in the tombs; and it is evident that the Egyptians had so familiarized the idea of death as to have rid themselves of the gloomy and painful associations with which it is often surrounded. The body, after being prepared for the tomb, was returned to the house of its abode, where it was kept never less than thirty days, and sometimes even a year, feasts being given in its honor, and it being always present in the company of guests. From the moment when the forty-two judges had pronounced their favorable verdict on the border of the lake, the lamentations of the funeral train were changed into songs of triumph, and the deceased was congratulated on his admission to the glorified company of the friends of Osiris.
CARTHAGE.
188. About 850 BC, Dido, sister of Pygmalion, king of Tyre, having been cruelly wronged by her brother in the murder of her husband, Acer´bas, resolved to escape from his dominions and establish a new empire. Accompanied by some Tyrian nobles who were dissatisfied with the rule of Pygmalion, she sailed in a fleet laden with the treasures of her husband, and came to anchor at length in a bay on the northern coast of Africa, about six miles north of the modern Tunis.
189. The Libyan natives, who knew the value of commerce and the wealth of Phœnician colonies, were inclined to be friendly; but their first transaction with the new settlers promised advantages only to one side. Dido proposed to lease from them as much land as could be covered with a bullock’s hide. The yearly ground-rent being settled, she then ordered the hide to be cut into the thinnest possible strips, and thus surrounded a large portion of land, on which she built the fortress of Byr´sa. The colony prospered, however, and was strengthened by the alliance of Utica and other Tyrian settlements on the same coast. By similar arrangements with the Libyans, the queen obtained permission to build the town of Carthage, which became the seat of a great commercial empire.
190. As the New City[19] rose to a high degree of power and wealth, Hiar´bas, a neighboring king, sent to demand a marriage with Dido, threatening war in case of refusal. The queen seemed to consent for the benefit of her state; but at the end of three months’ preparation, she ascended a funeral pile upon which sacrifices had been offered to the shades of Acer´bas, and declaring to her people, that she was going to her husband, as they had desired, plunged a sword into her breast. Dido continued to be worshiped as a divinity in Carthage as long as the city existed.
BC 585.
191. So far our story is mixed with fable, though containing, doubtless, a large proportion of truth. What we certainly know is, that the latest colony of Tyre soon became the most powerful; that it grew by the alliance and immigration of the neighboring Libyans, as well as of its sister colonies; and that it gained in wealth by the destruction[20] of its parent city in the Babylonian wars. While the Levantine commerce of Tyre fell to the Greeks, that of the West was naturally inherited by the Carthaginians.
192. The African tribes, to whom the colonists were at first compelled to pay tribute for the slight foot-hold they possessed, became at length totally subjugated. They cultivated their lands for the benefit of Carthage, and might at any time be forced to contribute half their movable wealth to her treasury, and all their young men to her armies. The Phœnician settlements gradually formed themselves into a confederacy, of which Carthage was the head, though she possessed no authority beyond the natural leadership of the most powerful. Her dominions extended westward to the Pillars of Hercules, and down the African coast to the end of the Atlas range; on the east her boundaries were fixed, after a long contest with the Greek city of Cyre´ne, at the bottom of the Great Syrtis, or gulf, which indents the northern shore.
193. Not content with her continental domains, Carthage gained possession of most of the islands of the western Mediterranean. The coast of Sicily was already dotted with Phœnician trading stations. These came under the control of Carthage; and though out-rivaled in prosperity by the free cities of the Greeks, especially Agrigen´tum and Syr´acuse, the western portion of the island long remained a valuable possession. The Balearic Islands were occupied by Carthaginian troops. Sardinia was conquered by a long and severe conflict, and became a most important station for the trade with Western Europe. Settlements were established in Corsica and Spain, while, in the Atlantic, the islands of Madeira and the Canaries were