THE MACEDONIAN KINGS OF EGYPT.*
THE annals of Egypt, so far as they come within the domain of ancient history, may be divided into four parts, and much praise is due to Professor Mahaffy for having selected as the subject of his labours the Hellenistic period, where authorities are few, frequently fragmentary, and not always trustworthy, and where the perplexing intrigues of diplomatists, con- spiracies in the Palace, and murders of kindred constitute the most salient and too often the only well-authenticated events. To have attempted such a task would have been praiseworthy ; to have failed in it only what was to be expected, and there- fore justly pardonable ; but to have succeeded, as the author has done, in throwing a broad and full light on a long and dark scene of history stamps him, without reference to his other learned and useful works, not only as an ornament to his University, but as deserving a European reputation. The present writer, while remembering vividly the pleasure with which in boyhood he followed the course of ancient history even in the jejnne and careless volumes of Rollin and Goldsmith down to the death of Alexander, remembers also the disgust and bewilderment he experienced in trying to pick up even a few facts from the chaos of the three following centuries, when valour had vanished from Hellas and the Courts of the East were, as they are now, sinks of corruption, perfidy, and pollution.
Egypt in olden time exhibits some features, physical as well as historical, which seem analogous to some recorded in the annals of our own country. Though not insular, it was defended on two sides by seas rendered dangerous by reefs and quicksands, and the entrance of a hostile force was by an intricate and hazardous march through the Isthmus of Suez, with swamps on one flank and a waste of sand on the • The Empire of the Ptolemies. By J. P. Mahaffy, F.T.O.D. London: Mao. willan sod Co.
other. On the west, mountains and the desert formed a sufficient rampart, while from the south nothing was to be apprehended save the plundering incursions of feeble and disunited negro tribes, though at one period a warlike host of Ethiopians subdued and ruled over the valley of the Nile. Nature had thus pointed out to the Monarchs of Egypt the wisdom of isolation, and that influence in foreign lands was to be sought by nautical adventure, if indeed it were to be sought at all. Bat some of their Kings, like our own Plantagenets, put their faith in chariots and horsemen, and pushed their conquests far and wide,—a system not much favoured by the sagacious Ptolemies, who relied more on their own wealth and the astuteness of their emissaries than on strong arms and sharp steel. Notwithstanding the unsocial dislike of foreigners imputed—but, as we think, not very justly—to the Egyptians, their rulers, like some of our own, availed themselves of mercenaries, and the Hellenic soldier of fortune was to the Pharaohs, and subsequently to the Ptolemies, what the Brabancon was to some of the Plantagenets and the German to the Tudors. The intolerance of the Persians, who for over two centuries had oppressed the people with exorbitant taxes and treated with contempt the animalism of their religion, rendered their acceptance of Alexander's gentle rule not only easy but cordial, especially as Hellenic and Jewish colonies had flourished for some generations at least in the Delta. Thus William of Normandy found compatriots settled in England long prior to his victory at Hastings, as the first Ptolemy did in his new Hellenic capital of Egypt. The subsequent conquest of Hellas and Asia Minor by the Romans, the civil dissensions in Italy, and the frequent periods of anarchy in Syria, drove many adventurers to rich and tranquil Egypt, and the Ptolemies favoured the newcomers, doubtless because some were men of culture, and many possessed of military skill and good habits of business, the Government being ad- ministered by a numerous and yet exclusive bureaucracy. 'The citizens of Alexandria and most of the cities, at least in Lower Egypt, called themselves Macedonians, though, as our author has shown, very few indeed of the genuine race could be found among them, and this mixture had its bad side, such populations being often insolent, seditious, and enormously deteriorated in morals and manners. The propensity of the Alexandrian proletariat to give nicknames to their Monarchs and other public men, and these not often of a refined or even decent kind, exists also among the mobs of London and Paris, and abounds among the " freeborn " of New York. Like Britain, Egypt under the Ptolemies had her outlying depen- dencies, such as Cyrene, Cyprus, Palestine, and the cities on the Philistine sea-board, and Ccele-Syria, when the Seleukid Monarchs were not strong enough to rend it away, while the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the lEgean were within what, in the meaningless jargon of diplomatists, is termed" her sphere of influence "and subject to her " suzerainty." Cyrene, originally a Hellenic colony, was governed by a Viceroy who was often a Prince of the Royal line, honourably banished from Egypt as likely to prove a dangerous rival. But as it con- tained five cities possessing local government, and distracted by the unceasing fend between the " have-somethings " and the "have-nothings," the office of Viceroy could have been no sinecure. Cyprus was locally governed by vassal Kings, somewhat as some parts of India are nominally ruled by hereditary Rajahs, but we find no mention of any Egyptian Political Residents; the mass of the inhabitants, however, being Orientals, the Greek colonies were unable to exert their mutinous propensities. Still, these territories were the weak points in Egypt's otherwise impregnable position. The rival Monarchs of Syria and Macedon, with a hypocritical affectation of sympathy, would proclaim liberty to all Hellenic States, and Cyrene became to Egypt what Gnienne was to England in the days of the Plantagenets, and another country in more recent times,—in brief, Egypt's difficulties were Cyrene's opportunities.
The Macedonian conquest of Egypt was not a territorial conquest in any proper sense of the term, as the native proprietor was not dispossessed, nor had he an over-lord placed over him as in the Norman occupation of England. The foreign Sovereign simply stepped into the place of the Pharaohs, who were held to be the real owners of the entire soil save only the estates of the priests, and received a rent of one-fifth on the annual produce; this system arose from the statesmanship of Joseph, but involved an awkward mode of taxation and one which gave much scope for fraud and oppression. That a class of nobles existed in early times may be inferred from the analogy of all other nations, but they make no appearance under the Ptolemies, and we are inclined to think that they were exterminated during the Persist regime, as the Sultans of Turkey got rid of the haughty Timariot chiefs by means of the bow-string. It is to be hoped that further discoveries of papyric records will throw some light on this point, as they already have on personal and property jurisprudence. The mass of the population, principally agricultural, had been reduced to political nullity by centuries of despotism, and do not appear at all prominent under this dynasty save by an occasional revolt in times of scarcity ; and the military caste, which in the Homeric times had been numerous and influential, seems to have faded into insig- nificance, eclipsed by the tactical skill and fearless valour of the European mercenaries. The Ptolemies were therefore constrained to attach permanently to their dynasty the sacer- dotal and military castes,—the former they conciliated by building and restoring temples, and regranting the lands long previously wrested from them by Persian intolerance ; the latter by liberal pay, relaxed discipline, and grants of land to the veterans. But a nation which relies to any great extent on such soldiers cannot expect to effect permanent conquests, it not being for the interest of the troops to bring the war to a successful conclusion by decisive victories ; hence we find this dynasty, though endowed with much force of character and political sagacity and rarely if ever deterred by con- scientious scruples, barely able to hold their own, and bring- ing most of their wars to an end by intermarriage and the status quo ante.
Almost all the Princes of this line, and in a still greatei degree the Queens, have come to us from the Hellenistic historians with a very bad reputation, but Professor Mahaffy has shown wisdom in rejecting the gossipy tales of Athenwas and the anecdote-mongers of the decadent period of Hellenic literature. It is admitted that all these rulers encouraged warmly every branch of learning attainable in their times, and were themselves highly cultivated ; that they liberally aided in seasons of distress not only their own sub- jects but several foreign States, a virtue not much in vogue in heathen times ; that they promoted civilisation by the estab- lishment of colonies and harbours ; that they were the first Monarchs to discern the rising power of Rome, and to conciliate its sagacious and energetic aristocracy ; and that by withholding from their cities anything approach- ing to local government, they provided effectually against the growth of disruptive tendencies. By a display of sympathy with the spirit of tribal independence in Hellas Proper they found employment for their formidable rivals, the Kings of Macedon, while by kindness to the Jews they formed a bulwark for Egypt against Syrian aggression. Briefly, then, we may say that though they were despots, they were so over a people who had never known, and probably would not have comprehended or obeyed, any better form of government, and on comparing them with contemporary Oriental rulers we deem them the best specimens of the genus despot. And when we read of their deeds as portrayed by Hellenic historians and Roman poets, we are reminded of tilt Latin maxim frequently quoted by Frederick the Great,— Begum est bene facere et male autlire.
The great blot on the Ptolemaic dynasty is the habit ot removing their near relatives as possible claimants of the crown by the hand of the executioner, but this had been the Oriental practice for ages, and was looked upon as a natural stroke of good policy. It arose, we think, from the practice of polygamy, which fostered Court intrigues and undue favouritism, aided by the propensity to conspiracies so common in the East. The occupant of the throne could with too much truth say,— " Self-preservation bids and I must kill or die."
There is certainly some moral, and perhaps intellectual, deterioration visible in the later members of this dynasty, but this, we believe, manifests itself at intervals in many families. Some theorists have attributed this decay to frequent marriage with relatives, a view in support of which we have not as yet sufficient evidence. Assuredly, as our author acutely remarks, the last of the line, the world-famous Cleopatra, was not deficient in natural or acquired abilities ;
tad her asserted misdeeds, some of which are by no means well authenticated, cannot be attributed to mental inferiority, but rather to profound and worldly-wise calculation. Perhaps, too, the decadence of the later Ptolemies was more relative than positive, for they lived at a time when Rome was prolific in much greater men than any of the successors of Alexander or their Orientalised descendants. Marius had repelled the Teutonic cataclysm ; Sylla, the Cromwell of Rome, had subdued the Italian democracy; Pompeius had forced the formidable barriers of Caucasus ; and Caesar had not only reduced Celtic Gaul to vassalage, but, if we credit his own tale, had extracted hostages and tribute from the tot° divisos orbs Britannos. It is, then, no wonder that historians and their readers turned their attention to Western Europe, and represented the Eastern nations and their dynasties as effeminate and contemptible.
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