“How lived, how loved, how died she?” are questions that rise in the mind in thinking of these royal ladies of the past. Of their individual lives but few records remain, and it is from inscriptions and paintings on the tombs, especially of those of less prominence than the kings, we may gather something of the daily life of the queens.
“No nation of the earth has shown so much zeal and ingenuity, so much method and regularity in recording the details of private life as the Egyptians,” says Brugsch. The kings’ tombs chiefly celebrated their victories, the king riding forth in his chariot, or with his captives by the hair, in the act of slaying them, or the king—sometimes accompanied by the queen—making offerings to the gods, these are the favorite subjects for the artist’s pencil, but for the details of female life we must look elsewhere.
From the tomb of Ti, of the Fifth Dynasty sometimes called the Pepys of that period, and from the sepulchres at Beni Hassen, much has been learned of the domestic life. Ti was a favorite subject of the king’s, an official of high rank, and his wife a lady of noble birth, of kinto the royal house. So we have pictures of all the household arrangements, the feeding and preparing of animals for food, the tenants, male and female, bringing of the fruits of the earth to their master, and he himself, after the Egyptian manner, painted of larger size than his inferiors, going forth to fish and to hunt. Sometimes, but rarely, the women also accompanied their husbands on these expeditions.
A statue of Ti bears the same likeness as the figure in the tomb. It is that of a fine young man, with regular features, and the statue of his wife Nofre-hoteps, grand-daughter of a Pharaoh, was also found.
As has been said before, the women in Egypt had no such separate and secluded life as those in the Eastern countries, they appear to have mingled freely with their male relatives, and the queens acted as regents during the absence of their husbands, or the minority of their sons, or sometimes ruled in their own right, from the earliest times.
There were the apartments of the women or the king’s harem, but not in such an exclusive sense as in many other Eastern countries, nor was the chief official in charge invariably an eunuch.
The seat of government changed from time to time under the different dynasties, so that some of the queens lived chiefly in Memphis, some in Thebes, some in Tanis, and, among the later rulers, in Sais and Napata.
The palaces were not many stories in height, and had, sometimes, pylons and columns in front,the rooms were built round a succession of open courtyards, which were shaded by palm, orange, olive, fig and other trees, and they also had large and beautiful gardens with fountains, especially in the royal country villas. On the flat roofs the people passed many hours, and disported themselves under awnings, and slept there on rugs and mats. In the country the houses and grounds were usually surrounded by high walls. Large mansions stood detached and had doors opening on various sides, and before the columns or colossi, at the entrance, hung ribbons or banners, especially on festival occasions. Sometimes a portico had a double row of columns, with statues between, these were also colored, and, when not of stone, were stained to represent it. The walls and ceilings of the palaces were brilliantly painted. They were also at times inlaid or adorned with lapis-lazuli, which was a favorite stone, amber and malachite. In the royal establishments there were porticoes and vestibules, constructed with great splendor, numerous columns, walls glittering with jewels, and curtains of gold tissue.
Floors were of stone or composition, roofs with rafters of date palm, and transverse beams of larger palm. Stone arches have been found both of the time of Rameses III and Psamettichus. Rare woods were imported, and also demanded as tribute from foreign nations, conquered by the Egyptians, as well as gold, silver, precious stones and slaves.
After passing through the servants’ offices one came to the store-rooms, the great dining hall,the sleeping rooms, and the kitchens, and at the further end of a piece of ground two buildings, turned back to back, and separated by small gardens, were the women’s apartments, which often had shutters closed with valves to keep out the heat.
The lady is spoken of as “Mistress of the House,” or “Lady of the House,” and seemed to have full rule over it—there is even a story that her husband himself was bound to obey her indoors, but this is hardly likely.
They had low stools for tables, flat baskets for dinner plates, and pretty Syrian maidens were favorite slaves. Couches, chairs, stools and tables were of wood, bronze and silver, the feet were often of lions’ claws, and the top of the tables were upheld by figures of captives and slaves. The furniture was carved with serpents, lotus flowers and other designs, and the back of a couch or chair was sometimes a hawk with outspread wings, and the ends of the couch terminated in the head of a lion or other beast. Sometimes the couches were used for beds and made ornamental in the day time. The Egyptians had alabaster or wooden head rests, like the Japanese, though the manner of hair dressing did not seem to require it to the same extent. The ladies’ dressing tables were covered with boxes for ointment, bottles for cosmetics, perfumes, and oils, and they used small metal mirrors, often with the figure of the god Bes as a handle.
The costumes, adapted to the climate, were light, especially in the earlier times, and the chief part was of fine linen. Later there seems tohave been more elaboration and heavier and richer materials used. Wigs protected the head of both male and female from the sun, as did the turbans and veils of other countries. The vulture, with outspread wings, emblem of the goddess Mut, formed part of the queen’s head-dress, as did the royal asp, raised in act to strike.
Thoth was the god of learning, called “the baboon with shining hair and amiable face,” the “letter writer for the gods.” Children and youth were expected to study and exhorted, even as far back as the time of King Pepys, “Give thy heart to learning and love her like a mother.” And there is also a touch of kinship with more modern times in the statement that the boy scholar be not allowed to oversleep and that children left school “shouting for joy.” Severity was sometimes used, as we read, “The youth has a back, he attends when it is beaten.” And again, “The ears of the young are placed in the back, and he hears when he is flogged.” Copy books of 1700 B. C. have been found, and we possess the school exercises of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. Such examples in mental arithmetic as “There were seven men, each had seven cats, each cat had eaten seven mice, each mouse had eaten seven grains of barley. How much barley had been lost in this way?” etc., etc.
But neither were the pleasures and amusements of the little ones overlooked, and there have been preserved little wooden soldiers, in the dress of ancient times, dolls, balls and many other things that still delight the child of to-day; such as tops, boats, etc.
An olive branch was hung at the door on the birth of a boy and a strip of woolen cloth at that of a girl. If a new born babe cried “Ny!” it would live, but if it cried “Nibe!” it would die. Mothers nursed their children for three years, and upon daughters more than upon sons was laid the obligation of looking after their parents in old age. The royal children had also, when they were old enough, quarters of their own, where they were under the charge of a tutor who was called a nurse. Those of the higher orders, dressed like grown people, as in the present day the children of Holland are often the amusing reproductions, in miniature, of their parents. The children of the lower orders dispensed in great part, or entirely, with any sort of covering.
Women were mistresses in their own house, came and went freely and so much so that we have an amusing story that among the lower classes the husbands sometimes hid their wives’ shoes to keep them at home, and this before the days of female clubs! But in spite of her privileges child bearing and work soon aged this class of women.
Among the moral precepts of the Egyptians in a papyrus now in the Louvre is one that says, “Ill treat not thy wife, whose strength is less than thine. Be thou her protector,” showing that it was no slavish relation that was expected to exist between man and wife. And again in another place we have a father who exhorts his son to have regard for his mother. “It is God Himself who gave her to thee, and now that thou art grown up and hast a wife and house in thyturn, remember always thine helpless infancy and the care thy mother lavished upon thee, so that she may never have occasion to reproach thee, nor to raise her hands to heaven against thee, for God would fulfill her curse.”
At the door of a house where there was a bride, flowers were hung, and a vessel of water was placed where there was a death. Fragments of impassioned love songs have come down to us, and though we know little of their marriage customs, compared to their funerals, the freedom of intercourse between the sexes and the greater opportunity for personal acquaintance than was usually afforded in Eastern countries, leads to the supposition that real love matches were not infrequent. Like the Japanese, they compared the beloved object to blossoms and flowers; nor were the ladies apparently behind the gentlemen in the free expression of ardent feeling.
“Thou beautiful one my wish is to be with thee as thy wife,” says or sings the enthusiastic maiden, and Miss Edwards and others give instances where each strophe begins with an invocation to a flower, thus curiously resembling the stornelli of the Tuscan peasantry, of which every verse begins and ends with a similar invocation to some familiar blossom or tree.
“O flower of henna,My heart stands still in thy presence.I have made mine eyes brilliant for thee with kohl,When I behold thee, I fly to thee, oh, my beloved!Oh, lord of my heart, sweet is this hour.An hour passed with thee is worth an hour of eternity!”…“Oh, flower of marjoram!Fair would I be to thee as the garden in which IHave planted flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs!The garden watered by pleasant rivulets, andRefreshed by the north breeze!Here let us walk, oh, my beloved, hand in hand, ourHearts filled with joy. Better than food, betterThan drink, is it to behold thee.To behold thee, and to behold thee again!”
“O flower of henna,My heart stands still in thy presence.I have made mine eyes brilliant for thee with kohl,When I behold thee, I fly to thee, oh, my beloved!Oh, lord of my heart, sweet is this hour.An hour passed with thee is worth an hour of eternity!”…“Oh, flower of marjoram!Fair would I be to thee as the garden in which IHave planted flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs!The garden watered by pleasant rivulets, andRefreshed by the north breeze!Here let us walk, oh, my beloved, hand in hand, ourHearts filled with joy. Better than food, betterThan drink, is it to behold thee.To behold thee, and to behold thee again!”
“O flower of henna,My heart stands still in thy presence.
“O flower of henna,
My heart stands still in thy presence.
I have made mine eyes brilliant for thee with kohl,When I behold thee, I fly to thee, oh, my beloved!
I have made mine eyes brilliant for thee with kohl,
When I behold thee, I fly to thee, oh, my beloved!
Oh, lord of my heart, sweet is this hour.An hour passed with thee is worth an hour of eternity!”
Oh, lord of my heart, sweet is this hour.
An hour passed with thee is worth an hour of eternity!”
…
…
“Oh, flower of marjoram!Fair would I be to thee as the garden in which IHave planted flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs!The garden watered by pleasant rivulets, andRefreshed by the north breeze!
“Oh, flower of marjoram!
Fair would I be to thee as the garden in which I
Have planted flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs!
The garden watered by pleasant rivulets, and
Refreshed by the north breeze!
Here let us walk, oh, my beloved, hand in hand, ourHearts filled with joy. Better than food, betterThan drink, is it to behold thee.To behold thee, and to behold thee again!”
Here let us walk, oh, my beloved, hand in hand, our
Hearts filled with joy. Better than food, better
Than drink, is it to behold thee.
To behold thee, and to behold thee again!”
This shows clearly the freedom of intercourse permitted, and with what naivete and frankness it is written! No effort at dissimulation in acknowledging the artificial enhancement of her charms. Rather perhaps did she feel herself worthy of commendation for the pains she had taken. It reminds one of the Southern girl who remarked casually to a party of friends, of both sexes: “How chilly it is this morning! Oh, now I know why; I forgot to pencil my eyebrows!”
In their feasts and amusements men and women met together and scenes in the tombs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties show ladies discussing their earrings and jewelry, as they might be doing to-day. To perform toilettes together, put on necklets and exchange flowers waspart of the entertainment, and talking, eating and dressing all went on to the sound of music. Birthdays and many other festivals, religious and social, were celebrated, and there were lucky and unlucky days for music, as well as for many other things. It was especially to be avoided on the fourteenth Tybi. Pollard mentions “a musical at-home” among the pictures on the walls of the tombs at Beni-Hassan, where two harpists, a sistrum player and others are helping to entertain the visitors.
The guests sat on chairs, or on the floor, and did not recline at table, as was the custom of many other Eastern nations. Their entertainment consisted of meat, chiefly beef and kid, geese, fish, vegetables, of which leeks and onions formed a large part; fruit, bread, cakes, which the bakers made in various shapes, and wine. This was freely used and the pictures sometimes show over indulgence on the part of the women as well as that of the men. Sometimes there were separate tables for men and women, sometimes they sat together, and frequently dipped into a common dish. They had spoons for fluids with various designs for handles, but the use of fingers was general for most purposes, hence the necessity of frequent washing of the hands.
Of the use of leeks and onions Story says, speaking of an Italian: “Nor is he without authority for his devotion to those twin saints, Apollo (or is it Cipollo) and Aglio. There is an odor of sanctity about them, turn up our noses as we may. The ancient Egyptian offered them as first fruits, upon the altars of their gods, andemployed them also in the service of the dead, and such was their attachment to them that the followers of Moses hankered after them, despite the manna, and longed for ‘the leeks and the onions and the garlic, which they did eat in Egypt freely.’ Nay the fastidious Greeks not only used them as a charm against the ‘evil eye,’ but ate them with delight—there is a certain specific against them—eat them yourself—you will smell them no longer.”
The host and hostess sat together, flowers were abundant, and a special token of regard was a wreath placed around the neck of the guest. Women were attended by women slaves who offered them ointment and other toilette articles. Oil poured upon the head is an attention which would fail of appreciation in these modern times, but was then considered so agreeable that a ball was sometimes soaked in oil and placed on the head of the master of the feast, so that it might trickle down into his hair. At the close of the banquet a mummy in miniature, richly gilded, was carried round to remind them of their latter end, or may it not have been to suggest that happy as they were, they could be happier still in another world?
We can imagine the olfactories of the Egyptians to have been abnormally developed, so constantly were they smelling flowers and holding them under each others noses—even the sacred nose of royalty.
“Smell of my lotus!” “How charming, how delicious!” We can almost hear the echo. Statues often show husband and wife sitting withhand on knees, or across the breast, or sometimes on the same chair with arms around each other’s waist or neck. Doubtless they offered each other what we may call the tribute of the lotus, or the lotus courtesy, murmuring, “My dearest, how lovely you are looking.” Chiefly to the lady, of course, etc., etc.
In the earliest times musical instruments seem to have been played chiefly by men, and women sang without accompaniment. But later, female, as well as male, voices combined with all sorts of instruments. There were kettle-drums, round and square, harps, lyres, guitars, flutes or pipes, and lastly, specially Egyptian, the sistrum, not melodious in sound we may judge, but used chiefly, though not invariably in, the service of the gods. Wilkinson gives many illustrations of these various instruments, and the picture of a lady with a guitar is in the Berlin museum. The flute, so easily handled, has always seemed to be reserved for male performers. Perhaps it takes too much breath from the ladies, or perhaps Minerva, having discovered that it was unbecoming, they have all resolved to shun it.
Pollard speaks of a harp inlaid with gold, silver and gems, which had been presented by a royal personage to the temple of Amen-Ra and was kept near the sanctuary, and of the hymns sung to the deity to the accompaniment of this precious instrument. We also have the song of a harper found on the wall of the tomb of a certain Nefer-hotep, who lived under King Horus, of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is called “the word of the harper, who tarries in the tomb ofOsiris,” etc. “Celebrate the great day, O prophet. Well is to thee fragrant resin and ointments are laid before thee. Here are wreaths and flowers for the vases and shoulders of thy sister, who is pleasant to thy heart, as she rests beside thee. Let us then sing and strike the harp in thy presence. Leave all cares behind and think of the joys, until the day of the voyage comes when man casts anchor on the land which delights in silence.”
To rejoice and to dance were synonymous terms, and the royal ladies had dancing women to perform before them as well as gymnasts. They played draughts and checkers sitting on the ground, while dice belonged to the subsequent Roman period.
Dwarfs and deformed persons formed, occasionally, part of the king’s or queen’s household. As a rule dancing seems to have been rather for princesses to look upon than share in, unless they danced in the temples before the gods.
Female dancers wore short skirts, necklets, anklets, ribbons round their bodies and wreaths of flowers, with plain wigs that made them look like children, and they sometimes dressed their hair to look like a crown. Ball playing was considered a variety of dancing. The dances of the older period were more quiet and measured than in later times, but none appear to have been objectionable, according to modern standards, to the extent of some now practiced in the East.
The maids of honor and princesses carried fans, which they held over the queen, and bore the title of “dearest friend.” When the queenand royal ladies drove forth, it was in chariots, sometimes of gold, and drawn by a pair of horses (after the introduction into Egypt of that valuable animal, of which there is no representation on the monuments of the very earliest times), adorned with plumes, while an umbrella was occasionally fixed to the chariot to protect them from the sun.
But the queen’s highest position was as priestess, concubine, daughter, wife, of the god. Egyptian queens or princesses held the service of Amon or Jove and the queen followed in the king playing on the sistrum and making offerings. No queen held the highest priestly office, but they were called “singers of Amon,” and “wives of the god.” Occasionally the mummy of the daughter will be found among the priests, the mother among the royalties.
The queen was “Neter-Hemt, prophetess,” “Neter-hemet, divine wife,” or “Neter-tut, divine handmaid.” The sistrum was from eight to eighteen inches in length, Hathor-headed, cow-eared, and sometimes inlaid with silver or gilt and the noise was supposed to frighten away Typho, the spirit of evil. The action of shaking was called “Art Ses.” A sistrum in either hand standing before the altar of the god, the queen had reached the highest pinnacle of human greatness or human ambition.
With the conquests of Cambyses Egypt became subject to a new set of rulers, by whom its manners and customs were, in a degree, changed or modified. Yet such are its inherent characteristics that it has been often said of Egypt, as of Greece, that she rather impressed herself upon her masters, than was impressed by them. Through the Persian period, to that of the Ptolemies, women retired into the background, and no one name comes into prominence, at least in an official character. It is in connection with Persia rather than with Egypt that we learn of the queens, some, perhaps most of whom, remained in their own land, while their husbands were absent, engaged in wars and conquests. The kings, distracted by wars in all directions, often made hurried visits to their conquered territories, leaving satraps and deputies to rule in their absence. The legal queen, we may believe, tarried at home, while the warriors left their women behind or were accompanied by their concubines, to whom no formal honors were paid.
Hence it is more than possible that although nominally queens of Egypt but few of them everresided in the country, those of the kings who reigned longest, of course, being most likely to do so. The Persian kings usually chose their wives from among their own nobility, the concubines were of varied nationality.
In thinking of these royal ladies we seem to see a veiled figure, with beautiful shining eyes, wandering among the gardens of the palaces, which gardens were said to be less formally laid out than those of the native Egyptians, but she is silent. Or behind palace walls we hear the echo of distant music, and perchance the sound of soft singing, to the accompaniment of a lute, or some other instrument. If she looked forth from her windows it was from behind curtains and lattice work, and if she appeared in public it was with a veiled countenance, only the eyes showing.
The ruins at Persepolis, Ecbatana, the capital of Media, and Suza acquaint us with the construction of Persian palaces, which differ somewhat from the Egyptian. When in Egypt the Persian kings probably accepted, to a considerable extent, the architecture and general arrangements of that country. Madame Ragozin gives us, from an earlier source, an account of the palace built by Darius, at Persepolis. “A central hall flanked by two sets of apartments, of four rooms each, with a front entrance, composed of a door and four windows, opening on a porch, supported by four columns, and forming at the same time the landing between the two flights of stairs,” such the ruins disclose. “The throne and audience hall, the reception and banqueting hall, was two hundred and twenty-sevenfeet every way, with cedar and cypress beams upborne by a hundred columns ten rows of ten, tall and slender, they rested lightly on their inverted flower base, carrying the raftered ceilings proudly and with ease on the strong, bent necks of the animals which adorned their capitals, of that peculiarly and matchless fanciful type which is the most distinctive feature of Akhaemenian architecture.”
The king’s throne was supported by rows of warriors and he wore the flowing Median garb, or the tight-fitting Persian doublet and hose. The master of ceremonies kept his hand before his mouth, and all who approached kept their hands hidden in their sleeves in token of peaceful intentions. The remains of the palace of Xerxes, the Ahasuerus of the Bible, have also been found, similar to, but not so fine as, those of Darius. The buildings were usually of one story and set on a terrace or platform, sometimes made of columns. Of the Great Hall of Xerxes Mr. Fergusson says: “We have no cathedral in England that at all comes near it in dimensions; nor indeed in France and Germany is there one that covers so much ground. Cologne comes nearest.”
Of the women’s appointed place we read:
“Between the porphyry pillars that upheldThe rich moresque-work of the roof of goldAloft the Haram’s curtained galleries riseWhere through the silken net-work glancing eyes,From time to time, like sudden gleams that glowThrough autumn clouds, shine on the pomp below.”
“Between the porphyry pillars that upheldThe rich moresque-work of the roof of goldAloft the Haram’s curtained galleries riseWhere through the silken net-work glancing eyes,From time to time, like sudden gleams that glowThrough autumn clouds, shine on the pomp below.”
“Between the porphyry pillars that upheld
The rich moresque-work of the roof of gold
Aloft the Haram’s curtained galleries rise
Where through the silken net-work glancing eyes,
From time to time, like sudden gleams that glow
Through autumn clouds, shine on the pomp below.”
The gardens attached to the palaces we may well believe favorite resorts of the queen and her attendant ladies. Shaded paths, sparkling fountains, retired resting places and beds ablaze with flowers, all these made a charming retreat. In the midst was usually a hall, kiosk or arbor, raised on several steps, a fountain in the centre making a musical murmur and spreading coolness around. It was enclosed with gilded lattices over which rioted in careless grace vines of jassamine, honeysuckle and other creepers—a fair green wall overhung and protected by tall trees. Here, too, doubtless the king enjoyed some of his hours of leisure, wrapped about with the perfume of violets and sipping a sherbet of violets and sugar, a favorite drink in Persia. We learn of a “Betel-carrier and Taster of Sherbets to the Emperor.” Lest poison might secretly be prepared for the royal palate it was always necessary to have a taster, the first victim in case of evil intent. To this other duties were added such as “Chief Holder of the Girdle of Beautiful Forms and Grand Nazir or Chamberlain of the Harem.” King Canute sat on the brink of the ocean and ordered it to come no further; King Darius or Xerxes laid a similar prohibition on the waxing proportions of his spouse—neither perhaps was strictly obeyed by Dame Nature. At least it appears to have been the duty of the “Holder of the Girdle of Beautiful Forms” to do what he could—“Permit me, most gracious Lady.Alas, one inch beyond the line of beauty!” Subsequently perhaps starvation and tears to insure return to the stipulated measure.
Costly materials rather than shape were prized by the Persians, and their ornaments were less ornate and elaborate than those of the Egyptians; rings and bracelets were of plain gold, collars of twisted gold, but comparatively unartificial. Their household utensils too seem to have been few and simple in pattern, a covered dish and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it are often pictured in the hands of the royal attendants. Occasionally, but rarely, we hear of Persian women indulging in manly sports, as Roxane, daughter of Idernes, and half sister of Terituchmes was skilled in the use of the bow and the javelin.
The queen mother, when the widow of the late king, took precedence of her daughter-in-law, the wife of the reigning monarch, had certain privileges, peculiar to herself, was attended by a band of eunuchs and dined with her son in the women’s apartment. Though not nominally in public life her influence was often very great and at times used or abused most cruelly.
As in the earlier times, certain cities in Egypt were assigned to furnish the revenues of the queen, and that of Anthylla was appointed to provide her with shoes. This must also, it would seem, have applied to the females of her household, as a single pair of feet, even though royal, could have been but a slight tax on the revenues of a town.
To return to the thread of history which weare following. King Apries was overthrown and succeeded by Amasis, who, usurper though he was, seems to have reigned long and well. The date given for the close of the reign of Apries is B. C. 579, and Amasis ruled for forty-five years; his son Psammetic III had been on the throne but a few months when Cambyses conquered Egypt.
Syria appears to have been held by Egypt during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, while later Egypt disputed its possession with Assyria, and lastly the Ptolemies and Califs ruled it from Egypt. But the Egypt of which we now make study was no longer a country united under one head and going forth to conquer and demand tribute from surrounding nations. She was alternately divided under the sovereignty of a number of petty kings or ground under the heel of some all-conquering but more or less temporary master. Wars and internal dissentions were constant, with now and then a longer period of comparative peace and tranquility, in which the country had breathing space to recover from the desolation and ruin that had preceded it.
The Persians, numbered as the Twenty-seventh Dynasty, came in as masters who desired rather to trample upon than conciliate their subjects. They outraged the sensibilities and prejudices of the people, and, it is said, that the arts, long in decline, received a severe blow from their invasion, while many of the finest buildings in Egypt were mutilated and destroyed by Cambyses, hence revolts against the new authority were frequent. Cambyses himself appears to have acted at timeslike a cruel madman, and whether the story of his stabbing the revered Apis bull be true or not, and, like all old stories, its authenticity is sometimes disputed, the incident is but an illustration of the general course which he pursued.
He was son of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, said to be the grandson of the Median King Astyages, and his mother was said by Ctesias to be Amytias and, by Herodotus, to be Cassandane or Kassomdane, daughter of Pharnespes, a member of the royal family, who died before her husband. Cambyses was in every way inferior to his father. The children of this marriage were two sons and three daughters, the sons Cambyses and Smerdis, the daughters Atossa, Roxana and Artystone.
Cyrus left his kingdom to his elder son, but placed so much power also in the hands of the younger that Cambyses caused his brother to be secretly murdered that his rights might be undisputed. Following the Egyptian custom, or setting up a law for himself, since it does not seem to have been the habit of the Persian monarchs, he married his two sisters, Atossa and Roxana. The Persian judges said it was not lawful for a man to marry his sister, but the king could of course do as he pleased. The unfortunate Roxana excited the fury of this monster by mourning for her brother Smerdis, and is said also to have been killed by Cambyses with a kick. A Greek inscription at Behistan affirms that Smerdis was murdered before Cambyses started for Egypt; that the latter committed suicide in the end; that the rebellion was a religious one, and that theMagian was not Smerdis but Gomates, and the discovery of the imposture is not as generally given. Other authorities claim that Smerdis was murdered by Cambyses’ orders during his absence, but the affair seems much involved in mystery.
Cambyses adopted as his Horus name “Horus, the Unifier of Two Lands,” and styled himself “Born of Ra.” For a third wife he took Nitetis, daughter of the Previous Egyptian king, Apries, but sent to him as the daughter of Amasis, the reigning monarch. Upon this deception, it is asserted, hinged the invasion of Egypt. There seems to be a discrepancy in dates, some holding that Nitetis would have been too old a bride for Cambyses, and therefore it must have been Cyrus that took her to wife, and that Cambyses was her son rather than her husband. But this tale is believed to be of Egyptian origin, made up to remove from their shoulders the stigma of being merely a conquered people and set up a pretence that Cambyses had some legal right to the throne by descent from an Egyptian princess.
Another tale is thus given by Herodotus. A Persian woman visited the harem of King Cyrus, was struck with the beauty of the children of Cassadane and praised them greatly to their mother. “Yet would you believe it,” said Cassadane, “Cyrus neglects me, the mother of such children as these, to pay honor to an Egyptian interloper!” On this Cambyses, her eldest son, a boy of ten years of age, exclaimed: “Therefore, mother, when I am a man, I will turn Egypt upsidedown!” Which threat, if ever made by him, was most surely fulfilled.
Supposing Nitetis to have been the grand-daughter, rather than the daughter of Apries, the dates become more intelligible. It is this period of history that Ebers has selected for his romance of an “Egyptian Princess,” which, like all his historical novels, if lacking perhaps great vitality in the individual characters, has a carefully studied and interesting ground work of historical fact. The truth or the tradition, which ever it be, runs thus: Amassis, King of Egypt, sent by request to the King of Persia, suffering with some trouble of the eyes, his special oculist. The physician, resentful of long ostracism from home and friends, suggested to his patron that he should demand in marriage the daughter of the Egyptian king. The plan was proposed not in good faith, but with a desire to make trouble.
Perhaps the reputation of Cambyses was already evil and well known. At any rate, the proposal produced consternation rather than joy and satisfaction in the circle of the bride-elect. Possibly Amasis held with special tenderness the daughter in question. Be this as it may, he sent not the princess demanded, but one who was probably considered of inferior dignity. Doubtless she went adorned in regal splendor that the deception might not be suspected. Her finger tips would have been tinged with henna to look like branches of coral; she would perhaps wear the Persian head dress, composed of a light golden chain work set with small pearls, with a thin gold plate pendant about the size of a crown pieceon which was impressed an Arabian prayer and which hung upon the cheek below the ear. The kohl’s jetty dye would give that “long, dark, languish to the eye.” A small coronet of jewels would be placed upon her head and over all a rosy veil. The veils the Eastern women wore over the head were coquettishly managed to add to their attractions. Says the poet in “Lalla Rooke”:
“Veiled by such a mask as shadesThe features of young Arab maids,A mask that leaves but one eye freeTo do its best in witchery.”
“Veiled by such a mask as shadesThe features of young Arab maids,A mask that leaves but one eye freeTo do its best in witchery.”
“Veiled by such a mask as shades
The features of young Arab maids,
A mask that leaves but one eye free
To do its best in witchery.”
The Arab women wear black masks prettily disposed, and Niebuhr mentions their showing but one eye in conversation, and again says Moore:
“And bright the glancing looks they hideBeneath their litters roseate veils.”
“And bright the glancing looks they hideBeneath their litters roseate veils.”
“And bright the glancing looks they hide
Beneath their litters roseate veils.”
So Nitetis, hardly a happy bride, was wedded to the Persian king, and “nightingales warbled their enchanting notes and rent the thin veils of the rosebud and the rose,” according to a favorite image of the Oriental poets. But not joy, peace and happiness resulted—rather wars and bloodshed. Perhaps in innocence, perhaps in malice, the new queen revealed the secret of her identity to the king. Since he did not put her to death we may believe that she herself had some attractions for him, but the deception hewould not forgive and seized upon it, only too gladly, as a pretext for invading Egypt.
Across the desert which protected Egypt on the northeast marched Cambyses and his army, while his fleet, supplied by the Phoenician cities and the Greeks of Asia Minor, blockaded the Egyptian king (Psammetic III, only recently come to the throne) in Memphis. The herald was sent in a Greek vessel to demand surrender. The Egyptians, with mad and cruel folly, courting their own destruction, since such an act would be sure to infuriate the invader, seized the ship and tore the crew to pieces. If not before, from that moment their doom was sealed. Cambyses took Memphis, B. C. 525, on the pyramid plain, where later Napoleon bade his soldiers do their best, for the Centuries looked down upon them. It is said that Cambyses put cats and other sacred animals before his troops so that the Egyptians were afraid to attack. Be this as it may, the Persians obtained the mastery, and Cambyses took his revenge on Amasis for the affront offered him by causing his dead body to be burned.
One cannot help thinking of the homely phrase, “Give a dog a bad name,” in connection with this ancient king, all the ruin that occurred for hundreds of years seems set down to the credit of Cambyses, who, with the most evil intent in the world, could hardly have accomplished all that was claimed for him. He is said to have left nothing unburnt in Thebes that fire would consume. “An earthquake and Cambyses,” says Curtis, “divide the shame of the partial destruction of Memnon.” An old inscription at the base of thestatue reads: “I write after having heard Memnon. Cambyses has wounded me, a stone cut into the image of the sun king. I had once the sweet voice of Memnon, but Cambyses has deprived me of the accents which express joy and grief.”
Tradition also says that Cambyses threw down the magnificent statues set up to adorn the temple of victory, built by Seti I at old Quernah, yet Pliny has preserved a story that the same king was so struck by the beauty of a certain statue that he ordered the flames which he had kindled extinguished at its base.
It is probable that all his other crimes paled into insignificance in the eyes of the Egyptians before his murder of their sacred bull. For this his memory would have been execrated forever had it been his only deed of violence. But whereas the Persians spoke of Cyrus as “Father” they called Cambyses “Despot” or “Master”; ferocity and cruelty seemed to distinguish most of his actions.
Both the hawk and the bull appeared as emblems of royalty and divinity among the Egyptians from the earliest times. But the bull was also highly regarded in Assyria, India and among other ancient nations. The hawk was sacred to the sun, the Apis bull, the living image of Osiris, the incarnation of a source of life and creative energy. Upon this animal, so revered and worshipped, Cambyses dared to lay what was deemed a sacrilegious hand; in the eyes of his new subjects he could have committed no greater crime. Says one writer: “At Memphis the Apis bull was bred, nurtured and honored with all the devotionthat Asiatic superstition lavished upon the representative of their miscalled deities.”
It was said of the god Apis that “his glory was sought for in all Egypt,” and an inscription reads: “He was found after some months in the city of Ho-shed-abot. He was solemnly introduced into the temple of Ptah, beside his father, the Memphian god Phthah of the South Wall by the high priest in the temple of Phthah, the great prince of the Mashuash Petise, the son of the high priest of Memphis and great prince of the Mashuash, Takelut and of the princess of royal race, Thes-bast-per.”
The priests would search through the land for the new Apis, which must have certain marks upon it. The rules required that the young bull should be black, with a white triangle on his forehead, the likeness of a vulture on his back, a crescent moon on his side, two kinds of hair in his tail and an excrescence under his tongue like the sacred beetle. Naturally it took a long time to find just such an animal, and the time between the death of one and the finding of another was kept as a period of fasting and mourning. It is said that when the old Apis outlived twenty-five years he was quietly drowned by the priests, and the bodies of the dead bulls were embalmed and buried with royal honors in tombs in the desert. When the new bull was found it was a period of great rejoicing. The mother and calf were brought to the temple and housed with all honor and regard. The bull was consulted as an oracle by offering it food, and the omen was favorable or the reverse, as it accepted or refusedit. This doubtless gave opportunity to the priests and care-takers to direct the matter as they saw fit. A hungry bull would be much more apt to give a favorable response, as one may well perceive than an already satiated one.
Memphis, the “City of the White Wall” which was to the Greeks as Cairo is to us now, the typical Oriental city, was especially celebrated for its worship of Apis or Hapi and was selected for its residence because one of the limbs of Osiris, killed by Typhon, the evil spirit, were found there. One pauses to wonder at the curious mingling of power and powerlessness which the ancients attributed to their gods. Proof against all dangers and performing miracles of all sorts they yet at times, even the very greatest of them, suffered and “died like men.”
Thus the sacred bull, selected by certain particular marks and guarded and cared for with special reverence, was looked upon as the incarnation of the god. It is in the Serapium (or bulls’ burying place), a word regarded as a contraction of Osiris-Apis, that various tablets and inscriptions were found which give the chief dates and information which we possess as regards the reigns of certain kings. The records of the Apis bulls are more complete than the Mnevis bulls, and he is spoken of as “a fair and beautiful image of the soul of Osiris.”
It was upon this adored treasure that Cambyses cruelly and unwisely vented his evil temper. After the conquest of Egypt he again engaged in other aggressive wars and, returning unsuccessful from one of his expeditions against Nubia and evenmore morose and ill-natured than usual, he found the people celebrating one of their religious festivals, and, thinking, or pretending to think, that they were deriding him and rejoicing at his ill-success, he poured out the viols of his wrath. “Oh stupid mortals!” he exclaimed. “Are these your gods? Creatures of flesh and blood and sensible to the touch of steel!” and he caused the sacred bull to be brought forth and stabbed it in the thigh and put several of the priests to death.
One of the most interesting events of modern times was the discovery by Mariette of the long lost Serapeum in 1850. The temple had been described by Strabo, but the lapse of years and the drifting sands of the desert had obliterated it from memory and hidden it from sight. Wandering in the neighborhood of the Step Pyramid of Sakkarah, the oldest in the world, believed to have been erected only eighty years after the time of Menes, this noted archaeologist stumbled against an object which proved to be the head of a sphinx, and immediately the description of Strabo came into his mind. At once, with characteristic patience and determination, he set his men to work and had the immense satisfaction after innumerable difficulties of discovering the avenue of sphinxes which led to the Serapeum and the buried temple itself. It extended 640 feet into the solid rock, with long galleries, sixty-four vaulted chambers on either side and a vaulted roof twenty feet high, while the breadth of the gallery was about the same. In one chamber he discovered the Apis, who died in the sixtieth year of Rameses II, so fresh and undisturbed didthis seem that the finger marks could be seen on the walls and footprints in the sand. A human mummy, which Mariette at first took to be an Apis, was also discovered, and proved by the inscription to be that of the favorite son of Rameses II Kha-em-uas, high priest of the temple of Ptah and governor of Memphis. The body was covered with jewels, gold chains and amulets, precious and gold washed, all of which are now in the Louvre. Huge granite sarcophagi were discovered in twenty-four cells, bearing the name of the king on the throne at the time the Apis was buried. The most recent mummies discovered were from the time of Psammetichus II of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, 660 B. C., to a Ptolemy Dynasty 500 years later.
At certain periods the votaries of Serapis celebrated festivals in the temple and recorded them on votive tablets, which were found in the galleries of the Serapeum. From these we gather that the reign of Psammetichus was brief; that there were six kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, 666 B. C.; that following Psammetichus I came Necho II, in the sixteenth year of whose reign an Apis was born. That another was installed in the temple of Ptah in the first year of the reign of Psamettic II; that an Apis died in the twelfth year of Apries, and that this king was succeeded by Amasis and Psammetic III.
Unable to carry away all of his finds to place them in greater security in various museums, Mariette buried some of them temporarily near the spot, which Miss Edwards says was betrayed and sold by the Arabs to a certain Austrian arch-duke,who took possession and carried them to Trieste. Among them was said to be the bull stabbed by Cambyses, while in the rooms of the New York Historical Society the same, or very similar, mummy of an Apis is to be seen. Whether the wound of the bull proved fatal and he was secretly buried by the priests, or whether he survived till the fourth year of Darius’ reign, as the Serapeum tablets seem to indicate, is a mooted point. Ne-chatano, a subsequent and native Egyptian king, is believed to have rebuilt or restored the Serapeum in 350 B. C. One tablet in the collection records the death of an Apis in the sixth year of Cambyses.
But the reign of this cruel king at last came to an end. A revolt took place in Persia, the murdered Smerdis was represented by an imposter, who for some time deceived the people, and Cambyses, hastening home, either died or, some say, committed suicide by stabbing himself with his dagger, so runs the legend, while mounting a horse in the same place as he had wounded the bull. It was the custom of the Egyptian women to go two days in the week to the tombs of their dead and to throw upon them a sweet smelling herb, like basil, but for Cambyses we can imagine no such mourning was made. The world was well rid of a monster, and even his wives must have felt that they were freed from the tyrant. Custom permitted the Persian king to have several legal wives, but one only was the legal queen. Atossa probably occupied this position. Her experiences in husbands were varied and her charms probably great.
Magus, by others called Gomates, personated the dead Smerdis or Bardiya and took Cambyses’ wives, but kept them in separate establishments that his secret might not be discovered. The story goes that for some previous crime the ears of the impostor had been cut off, but that he covered the place with his hair. In his sleep, however, one of his wives, the daughter of Otanes, suspecting his impersonation, passed her hand over his head, and thus his fraud was made public. In the end he was slain by Darius, a member of the royal family, who now laid claim to the throne and proved to be an excellent sovereign.
He again took Queen Atossa to wife, and her influence over him is said to have been unbounded, and she became the mother of Xerxes, who succeeded him. She survived Salamis and was actually, in part, contemporary with Herodotus, from whom we derive the information regarding her so numerous marriages. Cyrus had one legal wife, Cambyses three and Darius five.
His wives are given as first a daughter of Gobryas, whose children were Artabazanes, and two others—Atossa, by whom he had Xerxes; Hystaspes, Akhaemenes and Masistes; Arystone, by whom he had Arsames and Gobryas; Parmys, by whom he had Ariomardas, and, lastly, Phrataguma, by whom he had Abrocome and Hyperanthe.
Darius seems to have been the one Persian king beloved by the Egyptians, towards whom he showed himself in great contrast to his predecessor, most considerate and regardful, associatingwith the priests and studying their theology. During his lifetime he was called a god by the Egyptians and he is the only Persian king whose name is accompanied with a titular shield and whose phonetic shield bears the crest of the vulpauser and disk ‘son of the sun.’ The only one whose phonetic name is accompanied by a pre-nomen, like those of the ancient kings. He obtained while living the title of “Divus” and received, after death, the same honors as the native Egyptian sovereigns, of the earlier centuries. On an ornament of porcelain in the museum at Florence he is called “beneficent god.” He is even represented in sculpture as worshipping the Egyptian god Athor, and the mummy of Osiris, with the lighted lamp, the emblem of fire (the great divinity of Persia) in each hand. But in spite of this another authority states that no Persian king’s name is found on a public monument in Egypt.
When the Persian kings were present in Egypt comparative peace reigned, but, when they left the government in the hands of deputies, revolts were numerous. Darius put his satrap Aryandes to death for presuming to coin money; he being so distasteful to the Egyptians that they were on the point of revolt when Darius returned. But spite of the personal popularity of Darius the Persian yoke was hateful to the Egyptians, and when the king’s back was once turned, his presence withdrawn, and he became involved in other wars, they again rose against the invaders.
While preparing to crush Egypt Darius died, leaving the task to Xerxes, his son by the belovedAtossa. His first wife had been a daughter of Gobryas and her son, older than Xerxes, would naturally have, succeeded, but Artobazanes had been born before his father became king, and this fact, coupled doubtless with the paramount influence of Queen Atossa, decided the question in favor of Xerxes, who had been born after his father ascended the throne.
For the few succeeding dynasties the balance of power swung between the native rulers and their Persian conquerors, Xerxes or Khshaiarsha, whose wife was named Amestris, reconquered Egypt in the second year of his reign, and increased its burdens. He also seems to have made love to the wife of his brother Masistes and to her daughter, the wife of his son Darius, and because Xerxes gave this daughter-in-law Artaynte, for whom he had an unlawful affection, a beautiful mantle, woven by his wife Amestris, the queen had the mother of her rival most cruelly mutilated. Xerxes was himself subsequently murdered, apparently a not undeserved fate.
Under Artaxerxes his son, who succeeded, B. C. 465, the Egyptians again threw off the hated yoke, but after various vicissitudes were reconquered. This prince was said to be largely under the influence of his mother Amestris and his sister Amytir, both women of ill-regulated lives. His only legal wife was Damaspia, but he had many children by his concubines. Several native rulers who reigned briefly and were murdered in succession, came next. Then we have Darius II, previously called Ochus, andsubsequently Nothus, said to be one of the seventeen illegitimate sons of Artaxerxes I, who married Paraysatis, daughter of Xerxes I. Darius II reigned nineteen years and was followed by Artaxerxes II, said to be the last Persian king who left any memorial of himself in Egypt. He styled himself “Beloved of Amen-Ra,” and “Beautiful god, lord of the two lands.”
During this period the Egyptians associated themselves with the Athenians and Amyrtaeus, a descendant of the Saite kings, ruled for a period of six years. He is sometimes considered identical with a certain Amen-rut and a portion of the coffin of his daughter, Ar-Bast-utchat-nifu, is in the Berlin museum, but that the two are the same king is questioned by others. Amyrtaeus was deemed of sufficient importance, however, to be counted as the Twenty-eighth Dynasty, but we find no mention of his queen.
Nepherites is given as the only king of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty, from Mendes, and reigned some years, but again we learn nothing of the queen. Akhoris or Haker was first king of the Thirtieth Dynasty, he repaired various temples, and his name is found in several places. Several unimportant kings followed, one authority says that the revolt of the Medes permitted the authority of the Egyptian king Hakis, Akhorus or Achorus, of whom we have made mention, and of whom some memorials are found here and there, and a sphinx in Paris bears his name. The kings who succeeded are regarded as of little moment, Nectanebus I is frequently considered the next king and he succeeded inkeeping the authority in his hands, some say ten, some eighteen years. He seems to have been capable both as a soldier and a ruler, and somewhat revived the pomp which had been so characteristic of the earlier kings. He built some temples and shrines and repaired many of the important ones, and his name appears in various places. An obelisk cut by this king (whose name occurs at Philae), but which was not inscribed, was afterwards floated down the Nile by Ptolemy Philadelphus and erected in honor of his sister in the Arsinoite home. The fine stone lions once at the Fontane di Termine at Rome, but now placed in the Egyptian Museum in the Vatican, are said to be the last piece of Egyptian sculpture executed under native princes. He seems to have been one of the few kings who defeated the Persians. Nectanebus II, who was both a builder and a warrior, was the only other king of importance of this dynasty.
Ochus, Artaxerxes III, of the Thirty-first Dynasty, out-heroded Herod and led to the final collapse of the Persian power in Egypt. He emulated and even surpassed Cambyses, causing the sacred bull not only to be killed, but cooked and eaten at a feast. Darius Codomanus was the last Persian king, and when Alexander came as conqueror of these hated rulers the Egyptians made him welcome. He at once began a conciliatory policy, sacrificed to Apis, built a temple to Isis, and caused himself to be adopted by and proclaimed son of Zeus-Amon. He remained some time, founded the city of Alexandria, placed rulers over Egypt and departed from MemphisB. C. 331. Living he never again saw the land, but his corpse was brought back from Babylon and deposited in a sarcophagus in Alexandria.
The favorite stone of the Persian gem engravers was chalcedony, a semi-transparent, white quartz, the blue variety of which is the sapphire and on this one sometimes finds engraved the head of a Persian king.
The Persian yoke had become so intolerable to the Egyptians that they were prepared to accept any other conqueror with positive enthusiasm, and the Macedonian Alexander and his followers were welcomed rather as friends than as enemies and hated masters.
The colossal empire created by the splendid military audacity combined with the judicious tolerance of Alexander the Great may be said to have dropped to pieces by its own weight, and a comparatively few years after his short career was ended, for he died at thirty-two, it had been partitioned among his generals.
Roxane or Roxana, first or chief wife of Alexander, for he married others later, could only in a theoretic sense be called Queen of Egypt, as of other countries of which her husband was master. The mad rush of battle and conquest left little time for the ostentatious display of royalty. Alexander was rather a great general than a reigning king intent upon the government and internal improvement of the various countries under his sway. He seemed to have hardly time to place one crown upon his head before he was fighting for another, and the outward trappingsof his office must have been military rather than royal. There could have been little opportunity for his wife to realize the grandeur of her position. Hence it was, in all probability, not till after his death that Roxane, the queen, entered Egypt, and then it was rather as a captive than as a reigning princess.
By a previous connection, not a legal marriage, with Barsine, widow of Darius’ best Greek general, Memnon, Alexander had a son named Herakles, who afterwards laid some claim to the kingdom, but it was Roxane, a Bactrian princess, famed for her beauty, that he first made his lawful wife. She was the daughter of Oxyartes, “who commanded the Sagdian rock for Darius,” and on the reduction of this fortress, married the conqueror.
We can picture to ourselves a beautiful mountain region, the mad onrush of troops, the clang of arms, the brief delirium of a battle and then a cessation of hostilities and the natural man seeking once more excitement in amusement. It is said that it was at a feast or drinking bout, where dancing was also going on, that Alexander first saw and at once fell in love with the handsome Roxane, spoken of by one writer as “of surpassing beauty and a grace rarely seen among barbarians.”
Alexander himself was a handsome man in the perfection of manhood. Born 356 B. C. he was twenty-nine years of age at the time of this marriage, which is said to have united two strains of Indo-European blood. The bride was probably much younger. Of him many likenesses,usually busts or profiles on coins, exist. There is a bust of him in the British Museum, a terra-cotta in Munich, and he appears as the sun-god in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, as the Vernal-sun in a marble relief in the Louvre, in Paris, beside other places and his head on the coins. He was fair and ruddy, with finely cut features, an alert agreeable expression, a look of power and intellect and a full eye which could blaze with anger or melt into tenderness.
As opposites attract, and judging by the race from which she sprang (Bactria was approximately the present Bokhara and “has no small claim to be called the cradle of our present civilization”), we may believe Roxane to have been dark as Alexander was fair. A soft yet brilliant black or brown eye, raven tresses, ideal in feature and in form, and endowed with every grace. Alexander had proved himself invulnerable to many of the sex. The wife and daughter of Darius—women famed for their good looks—were treated by him with a respect and indifference to their charms unusual in such times and in such cases. He worshipped the god of war rather than the god of love. But the fair Roxane proved irresistible. He left her for a brief time and then returned and married her. To be the bride of the conqueror, especially when he was young and handsome, what more could any maiden desire? “None but the brave deserve the fair,” physical courage was the most admired of all the virtues, holding its place even in these latter days, and of that Alexander had a large share, as well as of other lovable qualities, impulsive,generous and large-minded, as he often showed himself. He wore a great plume of white feathers on either side of his helmet which made his ever a conspicuous object of the field of battle, yet he bore a charmed life and escaped injury.
Cruel at times, he was still warm-hearted. Between his mother and himself existed a strong affection, and in a quarrel between her and his father, Philip, he took her side and fled with her. She was the imperious, passionate and fanatical Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, to which country she returned with the son who inherited some of her traits, and to whom she was passionately attached. Plutarch gives many pleasant anecdotes of Alexander and refers to the numerous letters he wrote to his mother and other relatives and friends. He deprecated his mother’s interference with matters of war and state, but bore her reproaches with patience, and when Antipater wrote to him complaining of her he nobly replied, “One tear of a mother effaces a thousand such letters as these.”
With Alexander the name of Cleopatra is introduced into Egypt, where it was borne by a bewildering number of the subsequent royal family. His father put away his mother and married a second wife of that name, and to his sister Cleopatra, who married her uncle Alexander, her mother’s brother, King of Epirus, he was, as well as to Olympias, warmly attached.
The marriage of the conqueror with the nativeprincess placated the Bactrians and peace was restored. But the restless spirit of Alexander know no pause—he could not stay to dally in the arms of his love, no matter how beautiful, ambition was even a more powerful mistress and he rushed onward to new conquests.
He had adopted a conciliatory policy towards the Jews, he showed the same in Egypt. He sacrificed to the gods of the land, to Apis in particular, in marked and acceptable contrast to the conduct of Cambyses and Ochus, showed great favor to the priests and placed native Egyptians in posts of honor and command. He made a journey into the desert, a most difficult, hazardous and dangerous expedition, to visit the oracle of Amon, and caused himself to be proclaimed son of the god, with a curious mingling of faith in the oracle and deliberate adoption of a policy which conduced to his own interest as well as to those of the people whom he had conquered. He founded the city of Alexandria, which alone might have made famous any single or ordinary man, in addition to all else that he accomplished in his comparatively short life. The old Naucrates yielded its trade to the new city and the port of Canopus was closed, while Alexandria grew in splendor, importance and intellectual prestige and became one of the renowned cities of the world.
Separation and the life of constant excitement which he led may have lessened the hold of Roxane upon Alexander’s affection and a sudden passion for other women have overtaken him,but it is more probable that motives of policy dictated his subsequent course.
At Suza occurred what was called “the great marriage of Europe and Asia.” Planned by Alexander to celebrate his victories and perhaps to hasten the return of peace and good-will. He took to wife Statira, daughter of Darius, and some authorities say, also Parysatis, daughter of Ochus, brother of Darius and one of the last Persian kings of Egypt. He coerced or persuaded his officers to follow his example, and not one but many marriages were then performed.
So intent was Alexander on his purpose that he put a premium on such connections and promised to pay the debts of those who would take Persian wives. At this time Ptolemy, later king of Egypt, was united to a certain princess Aatakama, daughter of Artabanes, of whom we find no further mention, suggesting that these enforced unions were not lasting, and were perhaps regarded by their principals as a mere spectacular performance, or even a comedy. These nuptials were celebrated with great magnificence the banqueting hall was laid with tables for numberless guests and was gorgeously decorated. Pillars of gold and silver, set with jewels, upheld the awning above, and nothing that Eastern luxury could suggest was spared to embellish the feast. According to the Persian custom a row of armchairs was placed for the bridegrooms and one beside each for the brides, who came in procession, fair to look upon, in beautiful and shining garments, enhanced by all the appliances of thetoilette, and took each her place beside her lord.
It was a marriage of fatal import to all concerned. We can imagine the jealous passion aroused in the breast of Roxane at the sight or report of all this, doubtless in striking contrast with her own simple nuptials, jeopardizing as it did the right of succession which might be claimed by her own children, yet unborn. Perchance the new queen added fuel to the flame by a haughty demeanor, a half-concealed or openly expressed contempt for the barbarian chief’s daughter who had preceded her. Be this as it may, Roxane rested not till, with the aid of Perdiccas, one of Alexander’s generals, she had her put to death. The story goes that after Alexander was dead she sent a forged letter to Statira, either as coming from him or with purport that he was still alive and got Queen Statira into her power and caused both her and her sister, perhaps the before-mentioned Parysatis, to be murdered and their bodies thrown into a well and covered with earth. Having thus disposed of a hated rival, she rested in fancied security, but her own destruction eventually avenged this cruel deed.
The life of Alexander, lived too fast, and with little regard perhaps either to the laws of health or morality, came to a speedy close. He died 323 B. C. Either ignorant of or indifferent to the approaching birth of a child of his own, he is said to have left his kingdom to “the worthiest,” or some say “the strongest”—the first a person far to seek in the midst of such a grasping blood-thirsty throng. Some months afterAlexander’s death Roxane bore a son, who was named Alexander Aegus, and the infant, in conjunction with Alexander’s natural brother Philip Arridaeus, apparently a man of weak intellect, were nominally kings, under the regency of Perdicas, or Perdikkas, one of Alexander’s most prominent generals. No such giant succeeded the heroic figure, almost that of a demi-god, whose life had just closed, and the conglomerate kingdom which he had created fell into numerous fragments or divisions.
Roxane evidently could play the part of a Margaret of Anjou and her subsequent history is but a pitiful tale. She and her son fell into the power of the generals, who, like vultures, settled upon their prey. No noble emotion of protecting the helpless stirred in their breasts. It was a period of the world’s history in which weakness courted its own destruction. “Might was right,” a theory not altogether known in modern times, was the general rule of existence and some years after Alexander’s death Roxane and the young Alexander were put out of the way to make room for the grasp of stronger hands than those of a woman and child.
At first the spoilers called themselves Satraps, but eventually claimed or accepted the title of king. Ptolemy took Egypt; Seleucus, Babylon and Syria; Antigonus, Asia Minor, and Antipater, Macedon, later conquered by descendants of Antigonus; Lysimachus took Thrace; Leonatus, Phrygia; and Eumenes, Cappadocia.
Alexander Aegus, like Caesarion, son of Cleopatra VI of Egypt, was never allowed to succeedhis father, but his life was cut short in youth. Mother and child were simply used as pawns on the great chess board of kings and when their existence interfered with the designs of those in power they were disposed of. The then known world was in a tumult, war was the order of the times, peace almost unknown. The uprising and overthrow of one power and of one individual after another was continuous, the pages of history were stained with the blood, alike of the guilty and the innocent.
The years succeeding the death of Alexander must have been ones of anxiety, if not of absolute terror to Roxane, and the possibility of a violent death for herself and her child could not but have suggested itself to her. Nominally wife and mother of a king, she enjoyed little of the pleasures of state, but was hurried here and there and from camp to camp with scant ceremony. A possession too valuable to those who held her to let her go and in the end too valuable to keep.
The disposal of Alexander’s body was a matter of dispute. A counsel of officers decreed that it should be buried in the Oasis of Amon, where Alexander had been adopted by the god; Perdikhas wished that it should be laid with the ancient Macedonian kings, while Ptolemy was determined that it should rest in Alexandria, the new city. Ptolemy triumphed and the sarcophagus of gold remained there for some time; we do not know how long. Diodorus says “a coffin of beaten gold was provided, so wrought by the hammer as to answer the proportion of the body.It was half filled with aromatic spices, which served as well to delight the senses as to preserve the body from putrefaction. Over the coffin was a cover of gold, so exactly fitted as to answer the higher part every way. Over this was thrown a curious purple coat, near to which were placed the arms of the deceased, that the whole might represent the acts of his life.” This was placed on a magnificent chariot adorned with figures, symbolic designs, arches, floral designs in gold and funerary urns, an absorbing spectacle to the people. It seems almost strange that so much honor was paid to the body of Alexander, so little to his very flesh and blood.
This settlement of the place of burial brought on a conflict with the regent who came to Egypt, bringing King Philip and his wife Euridike and Alexander IV and his mother Roxane, perhaps her first visit to a land where she had been nominally queen. Perdikhas acted in his treatment of soldiers and enemies with great cruelty, Ptolemy with a marked clemency, and the cavalry of the former rose up and murdered him. Ptolemy was then offered the regency and the charge of the royal princes. But he was a cautious and far-seeing man and content with what he had already secured—the mastership of Egypt—firmly declined so dangerous a responsibility. The regency was then conferred upon or seized by Antipator, and new distributions and divisions of ownership ensued.
A mother and sister of Alexander, Olympias and Cleopatra, had raised a faction against Antipator and divided the government between them.A firm believer in “women’s rights” were these ancient and warlike dames; rights in which there should be no distinction of sex, yet as ever the weaker went to the wall. Cleopatra, it is said, lived a royal widow at Sardis, wooed by all the world—a woman doubtless of beauty, as she showed herself of vigor and capacity. She would have married Perdikhas or Leonatus, who had died, but spurned the rest. Like England’s Queen Elizabeth, she had many suitors. At last to escape Antigonas she agreed to marry Ptolemy, and thereby secured her own destruction, for Antigonas could not contemplate a union which might prove so injurious to himself and had her secretly murdered. Some one seems always to have stood ready for the commission of such deadly crimes. But to throw dust in the eyes of the people Antigonas gave her a magnificent funeral and proceeded against the woman who had been instrumental in her murder.
Time passed on and Antipater was succeeded by his son Cassander, more ruthless, cruel and self-seeking, if possible, than his predecessor, and he determined to rid himself of a charge become useless to him and assume full regal power. Olympias had meanwhile secured the death of Philip Arridaeus and his wife and carried off the young king and his mother to Pydna. Cassander besieged and took them, and Olympias was cited to appear before a public assembly of the Macedonians and answer for the murders she had committed. Trusting in her own power and influence she haughtily complied, but was condemnedto death and secretly executed by the relatives of those she had injured.
The young king and his mother were shut up in the castle of Amphipolis, where they were treated rather as captives than as royal personages, and finally put to death. It seems almost strange that Roxane, still young and probably beautiful, was not forcibly married by one of the contestants, and the question settled in this way rather than by such tragic means, but it was not to be, and the son of Alexander must needs die or others could not grasp the power which should have descended to him.
Ptolemy, if not directly accessory, at least connived at this murder, and thus secured himself in his new kingdom. It is said that the restoration of the outward shrine of the great temple at Luxor, built by Thothmes III and ruined by the Persians, took place during the nominal sovereignty of Philip Arridaeus and Alexander IV, and therefore quite early in Ptolemy’s satrapy. This restoration of the inner cella was in the name of the boy king Alexander. A statue of the young king is in the Gizeh Museum. It is of granite and about nine feet in height. The gentle and melancholy expression seems well suited to the youth’s tragic fate, but he is represented as much older than when he died, and it is probably a conventional likeness, with a mingling of the Egyptian and Greek in type and attributes. A certain inscription in Egypt mentions Ptolemy in the seventh year of the absent Alexander. His destroyer kept up the fiction of his authority, thusPtolemy granted lands in the name of Alexander and Philip after their decease.