The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians Part 18

Of all these animals, the bull Apis, called Epaphus by the Greeks, was the most famous.(348) Magnificent temples were erected to him; extraordinary honours were paid him while he lived, and still greater after his death.

Egypt went then into a general mourning. His obsequies were solemnized with such a pomp as is hardly credible. In the reign of Ptolemy Lagus, the bull Apis dying of old age,(349) the funeral pomp, besides the ordinary expenses, amounted to upwards of fifty thousand French crowns.(350) After the last honours had been paid to the deceased G.o.d, the next care was to provide him a successor; and all Egypt was sought through for that purpose. He was known by certain signs, which distinguished him from all other animals of that species; upon his forehead was to be a white spot, in form of a crescent; on his back, the figure of an eagle; upon his tongue, that of a beetle. As soon as he was found, mourning gave place to joy; and nothing was heard, in all parts of Egypt, but festivals and rejoicings. The new G.o.d was brought to Memphis, to take possession of his dignity, and there installed with a great number of ceremonies. The reader will find hereafter, that Cambyses, at his return from his unfortunate expedition against Ethiopia, finding all the Egyptians in transports of joy for the discovery of their new G.o.d Apis, and imagining that this was intended as an insult upon his misfortunes, killed, in the first impulse of his fury, the young bull, who, by that means, had but a short enjoyment of his divinity.

It is plain, that the golden calf set up near mount Sinai by the Israelites, was owing to their abode in Egypt, and an imitation of the G.o.d Apis; as well as those which were afterwards set up by Jeroboam (who had resided a considerable time in Egypt) in the two extremities of the kingdom of Israel.

The Egyptians, not contented with offering incense to animals, carried their folly to such an excess, as to ascribe a divinity to the pulse and roots of their gardens. For this they are ingeniously reproached by the satirist:

Who has not heard where Egypt's realms are nam'd, What monster-G.o.ds her frantic sons have fram'd?

Here Ibis gorg'd with well-grown serpents, there The Crocodile commands religious fear: Where Memnon's statue magic strings inspire With vocal sounds, that emulate the lyre; And Thebes, such, Fate, are thy disastrous turns!

Now prostrate o'er her pompous ruins mourns; A monkey-G.o.d, prodigious to be told!

Strikes the beholder's eye with burnish'd gold: To G.o.ds.h.i.+p here blue Triton's scaly herd, The river-progeny is there preferr'd: Through towns Diana's power neglected lies, Where to her dogs aspiring temples rise: And should you leeks or onions eat, no time Would expiate the sacrilegious crime Religious nations sure, and blest abodes, Where ev'ry orchard is o'errun with G.o.ds.(351)

It is astonis.h.i.+ng to see a nation, which boasted its superiority above all others with regard to wisdom and learning, thus blindly abandon itself to the most gross and ridiculous superst.i.tions. Indeed, to read of animals and vile insects, honoured with religious wors.h.i.+p, placed in temples, and maintained with great care, and at an extravagant expense;(352) to read, that those who murdered them were punished with death; and that these animals were embalmed, and solemnly deposited in tombs a.s.signed them by the public; to hear that this extravagance was carried to such lengths, as that leeks and onions were acknowledged as deities; were invoked in necessity, and depended upon for succour and protection; are absurdities which we, at this distance of time, can scarce believe; and yet they have the evidence of all antiquity. "You enter," says Lucian,(353) "into a magnificent temple, every part of which glitters with gold and silver. You there look attentively for a G.o.d, and are cheated with a stork, an ape, or a cat;" "a just emblem," adds that author, "of too many palaces, the masters of which are far from being the brightest ornaments of them."

Several reasons are a.s.signed for the wors.h.i.+p paid to animals by the Egyptians.(354)

The first is drawn from fabulous history. It is pretended that the G.o.ds, in a rebellion made against them by men, fled into Egypt, and there concealed themselves under the form of different animals; and that this gave birth to the wors.h.i.+p which was afterwards paid to those animals.

The second is taken from the benefit which these several animals procure to mankind:(355) oxen by their labour; sheep by their wool and milk; dogs by their service in hunting, and guarding houses, whence the G.o.d Anubis was represented with a dog's head: the ibis, a bird very much resembling a stork, was wors.h.i.+pped, because he put to flight the winged serpents, with which Egypt would otherwise have been grievously infested; the crocodile, an amphibious creature, that is, living alike upon land and water, of a surprising strength and size,(356) was wors.h.i.+pped, because he defended Egypt from the incursions of the wild Arabs; the ichneumon was adored, because he prevented the too great increase of crocodiles, which might have proved destructive to Egypt. Now the little animal in question does this service to the country two ways. First, it watches the time when the crocodile is absent, and breaks his eggs, but does not eat them. Secondly, when the crocodile is asleep upon the banks of the Nile, (and he always sleeps with his mouth open,) the ichneumon, which lies concealed in the mud, leaps at once into his mouth; gets down to his entrails, which he gnaws; then piercing his belly, the skin of which is very tender, he escapes with safety; and thus, by his address and subtilty, returns victorious over so terrible an animal.

Philosophers, not satisfied with reasons which were too trifling to account for such strange absurdities as dishonoured the heathen system, and at which themselves secretly blushed, have, since the establishment of Christianity, supposed a third reason for the wors.h.i.+p which the Egyptians paid to animals, and declared, that it was not offered to the animals themselves, but to the G.o.ds, of whom they are symbols. Plutarch, in his treatise where he examines professedly the pretensions of Isis and Osiris, the two most famous deities of the Egyptians, says as follows:(357) "Philosophers honour the image of G.o.d wherever they find it, even in inanimate beings, and consequently more in those which have life. We are therefore to approve, not the wors.h.i.+ppers of these animals, but those who, by their means, ascend to the Deity; they are to be considered as so many mirrors, which nature holds forth, and in which the Supreme Being displays himself in a wonderful manner; or, as so many instruments, which he makes use of to manifest outwardly his incomprehensible wisdom. Should men therefore, for the embellis.h.i.+ng of statues, ama.s.s together all the gold and precious stones in the world; the wors.h.i.+p must not be referred to the statues, for the Deity does not exist in colours artfully disposed, nor in frail matter dest.i.tute of sense and motion." Plutarch says in the same treatise,(358) "that as the sun and moon, heaven, earth, and the sea, are common to all men, but have different names, according to the difference of nations and languages; in like manner, though there is but one Deity, and one providence which governs the universe, and which has several subaltern ministers under it; men give to the Deity, which is the same, different names, and pay it different honours, according to the laws and customs of every country."

But were these reflections, which offer the most rational vindication that can be suggested of idolatrous wors.h.i.+p, sufficient to cover the absurdity of it; could it be called a raising of the divine attributes in a suitable manner, to direct the wors.h.i.+pper to admire and seek for the image of them in beasts of the most vile and contemptible kinds, as crocodiles, serpents, and cats? Was not this rather degrading and debasing the Deity, of whom even the most stupid usually entertain a much greater and more august idea?

And even these philosophers were not always so just, as to ascend from sensible beings to their invisible Author. The Scriptures tell us, that these pretended sages deserved, on account of their pride and ingrat.i.tude, to be "given over to a reprobate mind; and whilst they professed themselves wise, to become fools, for having changed the glory of the incorruptible G.o.d, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."(359) To show what man is when left to himself, G.o.d permitted that very nation, which had carried human wisdom to its greatest height, to be the theatre in which the most ridiculous and absurd idolatry was acted. And, on the other side, to display the almighty power of his grace, he converted the frightful deserts of Egypt into a terrestrial paradise; by peopling them, in the time appointed by his providence, with numberless mult.i.tudes of ill.u.s.trious hermits, whose fervent piety and rigorous penance have done so much honour to the Christian religion. I cannot not forbear giving here a famous instance of it; and I hope the reader will excuse this kind of digression.

"The great wonder of Lower Egypt," says Abbe Fleury, in his Ecclesiastical History,(360) "was the city of Oxyrinchus, peopled with monks, both within and without, so that they were more numerous than its other inhabitants.

The public edifices and idol temples had been converted into monasteries, and these likewise were more in number than the private houses. The monks lodged even over the gates and in the towers. The people had twelve churches to a.s.semble in, exclusive of the oratories belonging to the monasteries. There were twenty thousand virgins and ten thousand monks in this city, every part of which echoed night and day with the praises of G.o.d. By order of the magistrates, sentinels were posted at the gates, to take notice of all strangers and poor who came into the city; and the inhabitants vied with each other who should first receive them, in order to have an opportunity of exercising their hospitality towards them."

SECT. II. THE CEREMONIES OF THE EGYPTIAN FUNERALS.-I shall now give a concise account of the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians.

The honours which have been paid in all ages and nations to the bodies of the dead, and the religious care which has always been taken of sepulchres, seem to insinuate an universal persuasion, that bodies were lodged in sepulchres merely as a deposit or trust.

We have already observed, in our mention of the pyramids, with what magnificence sepulchres were built in Egypt for, besides that they were erected as so many sacred monuments, destined to transmit to future times the memory of great princes; they were likewise considered as the mansions where the body was to remain during a long succession of ages: whereas common houses were called inns, in which men were to abide only as travellers, and that during the course of a life which was too short to engage their affections.

When any person in a family died, all the kindred and friends quitted their usual habits, and put on mourning, and abstained from baths, wine, and dainties of every kind. This mourning continued forty or seventy days, probably according to the quality of the person.

Bodies were embalmed three different ways.(361) The most magnificent was bestowed on persons of distinguished rank, and the expense amounted to a talent of silver, or three thousand French livres.(362)

Many hands were employed in this ceremony.(363) Some drew the brain through the nostrils, by an instrument made for that purpose. Others emptied the bowels and intestines, by cutting a hole in the side, with an Ethiopian stone that was as sharp as a razor; after which the cavities were filled with perfumes and various odoriferous drugs. As this evacuation (which was necessarily attended with some dissections) seemed in some measure cruel and inhuman, the persons employed fled as soon as the operation was over, and were pursued with stones by the standers-by.

But those who embalmed the body were honourably treated. They filled it with myrrh, cinnamon, and all sorts of spices. After a certain time, the body was swathed in lawn fillets, which were glued together with a kind of very thin gum, and then crusted over with the most exquisite perfumes. By this means, it is said, that the entire figure of the body, the very lineaments of the face, and even the hairs on the lids and eye-brows were preserved in their natural perfection. The body, thus embalmed, was delivered to the relations, who shut it up in a kind of open chest, fitted exactly to the size of the corpse; then they placed it upright against the wall, either in their sepulchres (if they had any) or in their houses.

These embalmed bodies are what we now call Mummies, which are still brought from Egypt, and are found in the cabinets of the curious. This shows the care which the Egyptians took of their dead. Their grat.i.tude to their deceased relations was immortal. Children, by seeing the bodies of their ancestors thus preserved, recalled to mind those virtues for which the public had honoured them; and were excited to a love of those laws which such excellent persons had left for their security. We find that part of these ceremonies were performed in the funeral honours paid to Joseph in Egypt.

I have said that the public recognised the virtues of deceased persons, because that, before they could be admitted into the sacred asylum of the tomb, they underwent a solemn trial. And this circ.u.mstance in the Egyptian funerals, is one of the most remarkable to be found in ancient history.

It was a consolation among the heathens, to a dying man, to leave a good name behind him; and they imagined that this is the only human blessing of which death cannot deprive us. But the Egyptians would not suffer praises to be bestowed indiscriminately on all deceased persons. This honour was to be obtained only from the public voice. The a.s.sembly of the judges met on the other side of a lake, which they crossed in a boat. He who sat at the helm was called Charon, in the Egyptian language; and this first gave the hint to Orpheus, who had been in Egypt, and after him, to the other Greeks, to invent the fiction of Charon's boat. As soon as a man was dead, he was brought to his trial. The public accuser was heard. If he proved that the deceased had led a bad life, his memory was condemned, and he was deprived of burial. The people admired the power of the laws, which extended even beyond the grave; and every one, struck with the disgrace inflicted on the dead person, was afraid to reflect dishonour on his own memory, and his family. But if the deceased person was not convicted of any crime, he was interred in an honourable manner.

A still more astonis.h.i.+ng circ.u.mstance, in this public inquest upon the dead, was, that the throne itself was no protection from it. Kings were spared during their lives, because the public peace was concerned in this forbearance; but their quality did not exempt them from the judgment pa.s.sed upon the dead, and even some of them were deprived of sepulture.

This custom was imitated by the Israelites. We see, in Scripture, that bad kings were not interred in the monuments of their ancestors. This practice suggested to princes, that if their majesty placed them out of the reach of men's judgment while they were alive, they would at last be liable to it when death should reduce them to a level with their subjects.

When therefore a favourable judgment was p.r.o.nounced on a deceased person, the next thing was to proceed to the ceremonies of interment. In his panegyric, no mention was made of his birth, because every Egyptian was deemed n.o.ble. No praises were considered as just or true, but such as related to the personal merit of the deceased. He was applauded for having received an excellent education in his younger years; and in his more advanced age, for having cultivated piety towards the G.o.ds, justice towards men, gentleness, modesty, moderation, and all other virtues which const.i.tute the good man. Then all the people besought the G.o.ds to receive the deceased into the a.s.sembly of the just, and to admit him as a partaker with them of their everlasting felicity.

To conclude this article of the ceremonies of funerals, it may not be amiss to observe to young pupils the different manners in which the bodies of the dead were treated by the ancients. Some, as we observed of the Egyptians, exposed them to view after they had been embalmed, and thus preserved them to after-ages. Others, as the Romans, burnt them on a funeral pile; and others again, laid them in the earth.

The care to preserve bodies without lodging them in tombs, appears injurious to human nature in general, and to those persons in particular to whom respect is designed to be shown by this custom; because it exposes too visibly their wretched state and deformity; since, whatever care may be taken, spectators see nothing but the melancholy and frightful remains of what they once were. The custom of burning dead bodies has something in it cruel and barbarous, in destroying so hastily the remains of persons once dear to us. That of interment is certainly the most ancient and religious. It restores to the earth what had been taken from it; and prepares our belief of a second rest.i.tution of our bodies, from that dust of which they were at first formed.

Chapter III. Of The Egyptian Soldiers And War.

The profession of arms was in great repute among the Egyptians. After the sacerdotal families, the most ill.u.s.trious, as with us, were those devoted to a military life. They were not only distinguished by honours, but by ample liberalities. Every soldier was allowed twelve Arourae, that is, a piece of arable land very near answering to half a French acre,(364) exempt from all tax or tribute. Besides this privilege, each soldier received a daily allowance of five pounds of bread, two of flesh, and a quart of wine.(365) This allowance was sufficient to support part of their family. Such an indulgence made them more affectionate to the person of their prince, and the interests of their country, and more resolute in their defence of both; and as Diodorus observes,(366) it was thought inconsistent with good policy, and even common sense, to commit the defence of a country to men who had no interest in its preservation.

Four hundred thousand soldiers were kept in continual pay;(367) all natives of Egypt, and trained up in the exactest discipline. They were inured to the fatigues of war, by a severe and rigorous education. There is an art of forming the body as well as the mind. This art, lost by our sloth, was well known to the ancients, and especially to the Egyptians.

Foot, horse, and chariot races, were performed in Egypt with wonderful agility, and the world could not show better hors.e.m.e.n than the Egyptians.

The Scripture in several places speaks advantageously of their cavalry.(368)

Military laws were easily preserved in Egypt, because sons received them from their fathers; the profession of war, as all others, being transmitted from father to son. Those who fled in battle, or discovered any signs of cowardice, were only distinguished by some particular mark of ignominy; it being thought more advisable to restrain them by motives of honour, than by the terrors of punishment.(369)

But notwithstanding this, I will not pretend to say, that the Egyptians were a warlike people. It is of little advantage to have regular and well-paid troops; to have armies exercised in peace, and employed only in mock fights; it is war alone, and real combats, which form the soldier.

Egypt loved peace, because it loved justice, and maintained soldiers only for its security. Its inhabitants, content with a country which abounded in all things, had no ambitious dreams of conquest. The Egyptians extended their reputation in a very different manner, by sending colonies into all parts of the world, and with them laws and politeness. They triumphed by the wisdom of their counsels, and the superiority of their knowledge; and this empire of the mind appeared more n.o.ble and glorious to them, than that which is achieved by arms and conquest. But, nevertheless, Egypt has given birth to ill.u.s.trious conquerors, as will be observed hereafter, when we come to treat of its kings.

Chapter IV. Of Their Arts And Sciences.

The Egyptians had an inventive genius, but directed it only to useful projects. Their Mercuries filled Egypt with wonderful inventions, and left it scarcely ignorant of any thing which could contribute to accomplish the mind, or procure ease and happiness. The discoverers of any useful invention received, both living and dead, rewards worthy of their profitable labours. It is this which consecrated the books of their two Mercuries, and stamped them with a divine authority. The first libraries were in Egypt; and the t.i.tles they bore inspired an eager desire to enter them, and dive into the secrets they contained. They were called the _remedy for the diseases of the soul_,(370) and that very justly, because the soul was there cured of ignorance, the most dangerous, and the parent of all other maladies.

As their country was level, and the sky always serene and unclouded, the Egyptians were among the first who observed the courses of the planets.

These observations led them to regulate the year(371) from the course of the sun; for as Diodorus observes, their year, from the most remote antiquity, was composed of three hundred sixty-five days and six hours. To adjust the property of their lands, which were every year covered by the overflowing of the Nile, they were obliged to have recourse to surveys; and this first taught them geometry. They were great observers of nature, which, in a climate so serene, and under so intense a sun, was vigorous and fruitful.

By this study and application they invented or improved the science of physic. The sick were not abandoned to the arbitrary will and caprice of the physician. He was obliged to follow fixed rules, which were the observations of old and experienced pract.i.tioners, and written in the sacred books. While these rules were observed, the physician was not answerable for the success; otherwise, a miscarriage cost him his life.

This law checked, indeed, the temerity of empirics; but then it might prevent new discoveries, and keep the art from attaining to its just perfection. Every physician, if Herodotus may be credited,(372) confined his practice to the cure of one disease only; one was for the eyes, another for the teeth, and so on.

What we have said of the pyramids, the labyrinth, and that infinite number of obelisks, temples, and palaces, whose precious remains still strike the beholder with admiration, and in which the magnificence of the princes who raised them, the skill of the workmen, the riches of the ornaments diffused over every part of them, and the just proportion and beautiful symmetry of the parts, in which their greatest beauty consisted, seemed to vie with each other; works, in many of which the liveliness of the colours remains to this day, in spite of the rude hand of time, which commonly deadens or destroys them: all this, I say, shows the perfection to which architecture, painting, sculpture, and all other arts, had arrived in Egypt.

The Egyptians entertained but a mean opinion of those gymnastic exercises, which did not contribute to invigorate the body, or improve health;(373) as well as of music, which they considered as a diversion not only useless but dangerous, and only fit to enervate the mind.(374)

Chapter V. Of Their Husbandmen, Shepherds, and Artificers.

Husbandmen, shepherds, and artificers, formed the three cla.s.ses of lower life in Egypt, but were nevertheless had in very great esteem, particularly husbandmen and shepherds.(375) The body politic requires a superiority and subordination of its several members; for as in the natural body, the eye may be said to hold the first rank, yet its l.u.s.tre does not dart contempt upon the feet, the hands, or even on those parts which are less honourable. In like manner, among the Egyptians, the priests, soldiers, and scholars were distinguished by particular honours; but all professions, to the meanest, had their share in the public esteem, because the despising any man, whose labours, however mean, were useful to the state, was thought a crime.

A better reason than the foregoing might have inspired them at the first with these sentiments of equity and moderation, which they so long preserved. As they all descended from Cham,(376) their common father, the memory of their still recent origin occurring to the minds of all in those first ages, established among them a kind of equality, and stamped, in their opinion, a n.o.bility on every person derived from the common stock.