The Historians' History of the World 01

The disappearance of the old hero, Ramses II, did not produce many changes in the condition of affairs in Egypt. Meneptah from this time forth possessed as Pharaoh the power which he had previously wielded as regent. He was now no longer young. Born somewhere about the beginning of the reign of Ramses II, he was now sixty, possibly seventy, years old; thus an old man succeeded another old man at a moment when Egypt must have needed more than ever an active and vigorous ruler. The danger to the country did not on this occasion rise from the side of Asia, for the relations of the Pharaoh with his Kharu [Phœnician] subjects continued friendly, and, during a famine which desolated Syria, he sent wheat to his Hittite allies.

The nations, however, to the north and east, in Libya and in the Mediterranean islands, had for some time past been in a restless condition, which boded little good to the empires of the Old World. The Tamahu, some of them tributaries from the XIIth, and others from the first years of the XVIIIth Dynasty, had always been troublesome, but never really dangerous neighbours. From time to time it was necessary to send light troops against them, who, sailing along the coast or following the caravan routes, would enter their territory, force them from their retreats, destroy their palm groves, carry off their cattle, and place garrisons in the principal oases—even in Siwa itself. For more than a century, however, it would seem that more active and numerically stronger populations had entered upon the stage. A current of invasion, having its origin in the region of the Atlas, or possibly even in Europe, was setting toward the Nile, forcing before it the scattered tribes of the Sudan.

Temple on the Island of Philæ

Who were these invaders? Were they connected with the race which had planted its dolmens over the plains of the Maghreb? Whatever the answer to this question may be, we know that a certain number of Berber tribes—the Libu and Mashauasha—who had occupied a middle position between Egypt and the people behind them, and who had only irregular communications with the Nile Valley, were now pushed to the front and forced to descend upon it.

The Libu might very well have gained the mastery over the other inhabitants of the desert at this period, who had become enfeebled by the frequent defeats which they had sustained at the hands of the Egyptians. At the moment when Meneptah ascended the throne, their king, Marajui, son of Did, ruled over immense territory.

A great kingdom had risen capable of disturbing Egyptian control. The danger was serious. The Hittites, separated from the Nile by the broad breadth of Phœnicia, could not directly threaten any of the Egyptian cities: but the Libyans, lords of the desert, were in contact with the Delta, and could in a few days fall upon any point in the valley they chose. Meneptah, therefore, hastened to resist the assault of the Westerners, as his father had formerly done that of the Easterners; and, strange as it may seem, he found among the troops of his new enemies some of the adversaries with whom the Egyptians had fought under the walls of Kadesh sixty years before. The Shardana, Lycians, and others, having left the coasts of the Delta and the Phœnician seaports, owing to the vigilant watch kept by the Egyptians over their waters, had betaken themselves to the Libyan littoral, where they met with a favourable reception. Whether they had settled in some places, and formed there those colonies of which a Greek tradition of a more recent age speaks, we cannot say. They certainly followed the occupation of mercenary soldiers, and many of them hired out their services to the native princes, while others were enrolled among the troops of the king of Kheta or of the Pharaoh himself. Marajui brought with him Achæans, [Aqauasha], Shardana, Turisha, Shakalisha, and Lycians in considerable numbers when he resolved to begin the strife.

This was not one of those conventional little wars which aimed at nothing further than the imposition of the payment of a tribute upon the conquered, or the conquest of one of their provinces. Marajui had nothing less in view than the transport of his whole people into the Nile Valley, to settle permanently there as the Hyksos had done before him. He set out on his march toward the end of the fourth year of the Pharaoh’s reign, or the beginning of his fifth, surrounded by the élite of his troops, “the first choice from among all the soldiers and all the heroes in each land.” The announcement of their approach spread terror among the Egyptians. The peace which they enjoyed for fifty years had cooled their warlike ardour, and the machinery of their military organisation had become somewhat rusty. The standing army had almost melted away; the regiments of archers and charioteers were no longer effective, and the neglected fortresses were not strong enough to protect the frontier.