History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0410/04100.txt

Text File | 1992-10-12 | 32KB | 536 lines

$Unique_ID{how04100}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Rollin's Ancient History: Egypt
Sections IV - VII.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Rollin, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{egypt
footnote
egyptians
every
upon
life
first
flax
country
nile}
$Date{1731}
$Log{}
Title:       Rollin's Ancient History: Egypt
Book:        Chapter III.
Author:      Rollin, Charles
Date:        1731

Sections IV - VII.

Section IV: Of The Egyptian Soldiers And War

     The profession of arms was in great repute among the Egyptians. After the
sacerdotal families, the most illustrious, as with us, were those devoted to a
military life.  They were not only distinguished by honors, but by ample
liberalities.  Every soldier was allowed twelve arourae, that is, a piece of
arable land, very nearly answering to half a French acre ^415 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. ^416
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 the defence of both; and, as
Diodorus observes, 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. ^417

[Footnote 415: Twelve arourae.  An Egyptian aroura was 10,000 square cubits,
equal to three roods, two perches, 55 1-4th square feet of our measure.]

[Footnote 416: The Greek is, which some have made to signify a determinate
quantity of wine, or any other liquid; others, have translated it by haustrum,
a bucket, as Lucretius, lib. v.i. 51; others, by haustus, a draught or sup.
Herodotus says this allowance was given only to the two thousand guards who
attended annually on the kings. - Lib. ii. c. 168.]

[Footnote 417: i, p. 67.]

     Four hundred thousand soldiers were kept in continual pay, all natives of
Egypt, and trained up in the exactest discipline. ^418 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 horsemen than the Egyptians. The Scriptures in several
places speaks advantageously of their cavalry. ^419

[Footnote 418: Herod. l. ii. c. 164, 168.]

[Footnote 419: Cant. i. 8. Isa. xxxvi. 9.]

     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 honor, than by the
terrors of punishment.

     But notwithstanding this, I will not pretend to say that the Egyptians
were a warlike people. ^420 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 noble and glorious to them, than that which is achieved by
arms and conquest.  But nevertheless, Egypt has given birth to illustrious
conquerors, as will be observed hereafter, when we come to treat of its kings.

[Footnote 420: Diod. p. 7.]

Section V:  Of Their Arts And Sciences

     The Egyptians had an inventive genius, and turned it to profitable
speculations.  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
labors.  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 titles 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," 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 air of it always serene and
unclouded, they were among the first who observed the course of the planets.
These observations led them to regulate the year, from the course of the sun;
for, as Diodorous observes, their year, from the most remote antiquity, was
composed of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours. ^422 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.

[Footnote 422: It will not seem surprising that the Egyptians, who were the
most ancient observers of the celestial motions, should have arrived to this
knowledge, when it is considered, that the lunar year, made use of by the
Greeks and Romans, though it appears so inconvenient and irregular, supposed
nevertheless a knowledge of the solar year, such as Diodorus Siculus ascribes
to the Egyptians.  It will appear at first sight, by calculating their
intercalations, that those who first divided the year in this manner were not
ignorant, that to three hundred and sixty-five days some hours were to be
added, to keep pace with the sun.  Their only error lay in the supposition,
that only six hours were wanting: whereas an addition of almost eleven minutes
more was requisite.]

     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 practitioners, 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, ^423 confined his practice to the cure of one disease only, one
was for the eyes, another for the teeth, and so on.

[Footnote 423: Lib. ii. c. 84.]

     What we have said of the pyramids, the labyrinth, and that infinite
number of obelisks, temples, and palaces, whose precious remains still strike
us with admiration, and in which were displayed 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 colors 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 other arts, had arrived in Egypt.

     The Egyptians entertained but a mean opinion of that sort of exercise,
which did not contribute to invigorate the body, or improve health; ^424 and
of music, which they considered as a useless and dangerous diversion, and only
fit to enervate the mind.

[Footnote 424: Diod. l. i. p. 73.]

Section VI:  Of Their Husbandmen, Shepherds, And Artificer

     Husbandmen, shepherds, and artificers, formed the this classes of lower
life in Egypt, but were nevertheless had in very great esteem, particularly
husbandmen and shepherds.  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 lustre does not dirt contempt upon the
feet, the hands, or even on those parts which are less honorable; in like
manner, among the Egyptians, the priests, soldiers, and scholars, were
distinguished by particular honors; but all professions, to the meanest, had
their share in the public esteem, because the despising of any man, whose
labors, 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, ^426 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
nobility on every person derived from the common stock. Indeed, the difference
of conditions, and the contempt with which persons of the lowest rank are
treated, are owing merely to the distance from the common root; which makes us
forget, that the meanest plebeian when his descent is traced back to the
source, is equally noble with the most elevated rank and title.

[Footnote 426: Or Ham.]

     Be that as it will, no profession in Egypt was considered as grovelling
or sordid.  By this means arts were raised to their highest perfection.  The
honor which cherished them, mixed with every thought and care for their
improvement.  Every man had his way of life assigned him by the laws, and it
was perpetuated from father to son.  Two professions a one time, or a change
of that which a man was born to were never allowed. By this means, men became
more aby and expert in employments which they had always exercised from their
infancy; and every man, adding his own experience to that of his ancestors,
was more capable of attaining perfection in his particular art.  Besides, this
wholesome institution, which had been established anciently throughout Egypt,
extinguished all irregular ambition; and taught every man to sit down
contented with his condition, without aspiring to one more elevated, from
interest, vain glory, or levity.

     From this source flowed numberless inventions for the improvement of all
the arts, and for rendering life more commodious, and trade more easy. I could
not believe that Diodorus was in earnest in what he relates concerning the
Egyptian industry, viz.: that this people had found out a way, by an
artificial fecundity, to hatch eggs without the sitting of the hen; ^427 but
all modern travellers declare it to be a fact, which certainly is worthy our
curiosity and is said to be practised in some places of Europe.  Their
relations inform us, that the Egyptians stow eggs in ovens, which are heated
to such a temperature, and with such just proportion to the natural warmth of
the hen, that the chickens produced from these means are as strong as those
which are hatched the natural way. The season of the year proper for this
operation is, from the end of December to the end of April; the heat in Egypt
being too violent in the other months.  During these months, upwards of three
hundred thousand eggs are laid in these ovens, which, though they are not all
successful, nevertheless produce vast numbers of fowls at an easy rate.  The
art lies in giving the ovens a due degree of heat, which must not exceed a
fixed proportion.  About ten days are bestowed in heating these ovens, and
very near as much time in hatching the eggs.  It is very entertaining, say
these travellers, to observe the hatching of these chickens, some of which
show at first nothing but their heads, others but half their bodies, and
others again come quite out of the egg, these last, the moment they are
hatched, make their way over the unhatched eggs, and form a diverting
spectacle.  Corneille le Bruyn, in his Travels, ^428 has collected the
observations of other travellers on this subject.  Pliny likewise mentions it;
but it appears from him, that the Egyptians, anciently, employed warm dung,
not ovens, to hatch eggs. ^429

[Footnote 427: Diod. l. i. p. 67.]

[Footnote 428: Tom. ii. p. 64.]

[Footnote 429: Lib. x. c. 54.]

     I have said, that husbandmen particularly, and those who took care of
flocks, were in great esteem in Egypt, some parts of it excepted, where the
latter were not suffered. ^430 It was, indeed, to these two professions that
Egypt owed its riches and plenty.  It is astonishing to reflect what
advantages the Egyptians, by their art and labor, drew from a country of no
great extent but whose soil was made wonderfully fruitful by the inundations
of the Nile, and the laborious industry of the inhabitants.

[Footnote 430: Swineherds, in particular, had a general ill-name throughout
Egypt, as they had the care of so impure an animal.  Herodotus, l. ii. c. 47,
tells us, that they were not permitted to enter the Egyptian temples, nor
would any man give them his daughter in marriage.]

     It will be always so with every kingdom, whose governors direct all their
actions to the public welfare.  The culture of lands, and the breeding of
cattle, will be an inexhaustible fund of wealth in all countries, where, as in
Egypt, these profitable callings are supported and encouraged by maxims of
state policy.  And we may consider it as a misfortune, that they are at
present fallen into so general a disesteem; though it is from them that the
most elevated ranks, as we esteem them, are furnished not only with the
necessaries, but even the luxuries of life.  "For," says Abbe Fleury, in his
admirable work 'Of the Manners of the Israelites,' where the subject I am upon
is thoroughly examined, "it is the peasant who feeds the citizen, the
magistrate, the gentleman, the ecclesiastic: and whatever artifice or craft
may be used to convert money into commodities, and these back again into
money, yet all must ultimately be owned to be received from the products of
the earth, and the animals that it sustains and nourishes.  Nevertheless, when
we compare men's different stations of life together, we give the lowest place
to the husbandman; and with many people a wealthy citizen, enervated with
sloth, useless to the public, and void of all merit, has the preference,
merely because he has more money, and lives a more easy and delightful life.

     "But let us imagine to ourselves a country where so great a difference is
not made between the several conditions; where the life of a nobleman is not
made to consist in idleness and doing nothing, but in a careful preservation
of his liberty, that is, in a due subjection to the laws and the constitution;
by a man's subsisting upon his estate without dependence on any one, and being
contented to enjoy a little with liberty, rather than a great deal at the
price of mean and base compliances: a country, where sloth, effeminacy, and
the ignorance of things necessary for life, are held in just contempt, and
where pleasure is less valued than health and bodily strength: in such a
country, it will be much more for a man's reputation to plough, and keep
flocks, than to waste all his hours in sauntering from place to place, in
gaming, and expensive diversions." But we need not have recourse to Plato's
commonwealth for instances of men who have led these useful lives.  It was
thus that the greatest part of mankind lived during near four thousand years;
and that not only the Israelites, but the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the
Romans, that is to say, nations the most civilized, and most renowned for arms
and wisdom.  They all inculcate the regard which ought to be paid to
agriculture and the breeding of cattle; one of which (without saying any thing
of hemp and flax, so necessary for our clothing,) supplies us, by corn,
fruits, and pulse, with not only a plentiful but a delicious nourishment; and
the other, besides its supply of exquisite meats to cover our tables, almost
alone gives life to manufactures and trade, by the skins and stuffs it
furnishes.

     Princes are commonly desirous, and their interest certainly requires it,
that the peasant, who, in a literal sense, sustains the heat and burden of the
day, and pays so great a portion of the national taxes, should meet with favor
and encouragement.  But the kind and good intentions of princes are too often
defeated by the insatiable and merciless avarice of those who are appointed to
collect their revenues. History has transmitted to us a fine saying of
Tiberius on this head.  A prefect of Egypt, having augmented the annual
tribute of the province, and doubtless with the view of making his court to
the emperor, remitted to him a sum much larger than was customary; ^431 that
prince, who in the beginning of his reign thought, or at least spoke justly,
answered was his design not to flay, but to shear his sheep. ^432

[Footnote 431: Diod. l. lvii. p. 608.]

[Footnote 432: - Diod. l. lvii.]

Section VII:  Of The Fertility Of Egypt

     Under this head I shall treat only of some plants peculiar to Egypt, and
of the abundance of corn which it produced.

     Papyrus.  This is a plant, from the root of which shoot out a great many
triangular stalks, to the height of six or seven cubits.  The ancients wrote
at first upon palm leaves; next, on the inside of the bark of trees, from
whence the word liber, or book, is derived; after that, upon tables covered
over with wax, on which the characters were impressed with an instrument
called stylus, sharp-pointed at one end to write with, and flat at the other
to efface what had been written; ^433 which gave occasion to the following
expression of Horace:

[Footnote 433: Plin. l. xiii. c. 11.]

     Saepe stylum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint
     Scripturus. - Sat. lib. ix. ver. 72.

     Oft turn your style, if you desire to write
     Things that will bear a second reading.

The meaning of which is, that a good performance is not to be expected without
many erasures and corrections.  At last the use of paper ^434 was introduced,
and this was made of the bark of papyrus, divided into thin flakes or leaves,
which were very proper for writing; and the papyrus was likewise called
byblus.

[Footnote 434: The papyrus was divided into thin flakes, into which it
naturally parted, which being laid on a table, and moistened with the
glutinous waters of the Nile, were afterwards pressed together, and dried in
the sun.]

     Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere byblos
     Noverat. - Lucan.

     Memphis as yet knew not to form in leaves
     The watery Byblus.

     Pliny calls it a wonderful invention, so useful to life, that it
preserves the memory of great actions, and immortalizes those who achieve
them. ^435 Varro ascribes this invention to Alexander the Great, when he built
Alexandria; but he had only the merit of making paper more common, for the
invention was of much greater antiquity.  The same Pliny adds, that Eumenes,
king of Pergamus, substituted parchment instead of paper; in emulation of
Ptolemy, king of Egypt, whose liberty he was ambitious to excel by this
invention, which had the advantage over paper.  Parchment is the skin of a
sheep, dressed and made fit to write upon.  It was called Pergamenum from
Pergamus, whose kings had the honor of the invention.  All the ancient
manuscripts are either upon parchment or vellum, which is calf-skin, and a
great deal finer than the common parchment.  It is very curious to see white
fine paper wrought out of filthy rags picked up in the streets.  The plant
papyrus was useful likewise for sails, tackling, clothes, coverlets, etc. ^436

[Footnote 435: Postea promiscue patuit usus rei, qua constat immortalitas
hominum Chartae usu maxime humanitas constat in memoria.]

[Footnote 436: Plin l. xix. c. 1.]

     Linum.  Flax is a plant whose bark, full of fibres or strings, is useful
in making fine linen.  The method of making this linen in Egypt was wonderful,
and carried to such perfection, that the threads which were drawn out of them,
were almost too small for the observation of the sharpest eye.  Priests were
always habited in linen, and never in woollen; and not only the priests, but
all persons of distinction, generally wore linen clothes.  This flax formed a
considerable branch of the Egyptian trade, and great quantities of it were
exported into foreign countries. The manufacture of flax employed a great
number of hands in Egypt, especially of the women, as appears from that
passage in Isaiah, in which the prophet menaces Egypt with a drought of so
terrible a kind, that it should interrupt every kind of labor.  Moreover, they
that work in fine flax, and they that weave net-work, shall be confounded.
^437 We likewise find in Scripture, that one effect of the plague of hail,
called down by Moses upon Egypt, ^438 was the destruction of all the flax
which was then bolled.  This storm was in March.

[Footnote 437: Isa. xix. 9.]

[Footnote 438: Exod. ix. 31.]

     Byssus.  This was another kind of flax extremely fine and small, which
often received a purple dye. ^439 It was very dear; and none but rich and
wealthy persons could afford to wear it.  Pliny, who gives the first place to
the asbeston or asbestinum, i.e., the incombustible flax, places the byssus in
the next rank; and says, that it served as an ornament to the ladies. ^440 It
appears from the Holy Scriptures, that it was chiefly from Egypt cloth made
from this fine flax was brought.  Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt.
^441

[Footnote 439: Plin. l. xix. c. 1.]

[Footnote 440: Proximus byssino mulierum maxime deliciis genito: inventum jam
est etiam (scilicet Linum) quod ignibus non absumetur: vivum id vocant,
ardentesque in focis conviviorum ex eo vidimus mappas, sordibus exustis
splendescentes igni magis quam possent aquis. - i.e.  A flax is now found out,
which is proof against the violence of fire; it is called living flax, and we
have seen table-napkins of it glowing in the fires of our dining-rooms, and
receiving a lustre and a cleanness from flames, which no water could have
given it.]

[Footnote 441: Ezek. xxvii. 7.]

     I take no notice of the lotus or lote-tree, a common plant, and in great
request with the Egyptians, of whose berries, in former times, they made
bread.  There was another lotus in Africa, which gave its name to the
eotophagi or lotus-eaters, because they lived upon the fruit of this tree,
which had so delicious a taste, if Homer may be credited, that it made the
eaters of it forget all the sweets of their native country, as Ulysses found
to his cost on his return from Troy.

     In general, it may be said, that the Egyptian pulse and fruits were
excellent; and might, as Pliny observes, have sufficed singly for the
nourishment of the inhabitants, such was their excellent quality, and so great
their plenty. ^443 And, indeed, working men lived then almost upon nothing
else, as appears from those who were employed in building the pyramids.

[Footnote 443: Aegyptus frugum quidem fertilissima, sed ut prope sola iis
carere possit, tanta, est ciborum ex herbis abundantia. - Plin. l. xxi. c.
15.]

     Besides these rural riches, the Nile, from its fish, and the fatness it
gave to the soil for the feeding of cattle, furnished the tables of the
Egyptians with the most exquisite fish of every kind, and the most succulent
flesh.  This it was which made the Israelites so deeply regret the loss of
Egypt, when they found themselves in the wilderness: Who, say they, in a
plaintive, and at the same time seditious tone, shall give us flesh to eat?
We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and
melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. ^444 We sat by the
flesh pots, and we did eat bread to the full. ^445

[Footnote 444: Numb. xi. 4, 5.]

[Footnote 445: Exod. xvi. 3.]

     But the great and matchless wealth of Egypt arose from its corn, which,
even in an almost universal famine, enabled it to support all the neighboring
nations, as it particularly did under Joseph's administration. In later ages
it was the resource and most certain granary of Rome and Constantinople.  It
is a well-known story, how a calumny raised against St. Athanasius, viz.: of
his having menaced Constantinople, that for the future no more corn should be
imported to it from Alexandria, incensed the emperor Constantine against that
holy bishop, because he knew that his capital city could not subsist without
the corn which was brought to it from Egypt.  The same reason induced all the
emperors of Rome to take so great a care of Egypt, which they considered as
the nursing mother of the world's metropolis.

     Nevertheless, the same river which enables this province to subsist the
two most populous cities in the world, sometimes reduced even Egypt itself to
the most terrible famine; and it is astonishing that Joseph's wise foresight,
which, in fruitful years, had made provision for seasons of sterility, should
not have taught these so much boasted politicians, a like care against the
changes and inconstancy of the Nile.  Pliny, in his panegyric upon Trajan,
paints, with wonderful strength, the extremity to which that country was
reduced by a famine, under that prince's reign, and his generous relief of it.
The reader will not be displeased to read here an extract of it, in which a
greater regard will be had to Pliny's thoughts, than to his expressions.

     The Egyptians, says Pliny, who gloried that they needed neither rain nor
sun to produce their corn, and who believed they might confidently contest the
prize of plenty with the most fruitful countries of the world, were condemned
to unexpected drought and a fatal sterility; from the greatest part of their
territories being deserted and left unwatered by the Nile, whose inundation is
the source and sure standard of their abundance.  They then implored that
assistance from their prince, which they used to expect only from their river.
^446 The delay of their relief was no longer than that which employed a
courier to bring the melancholy news to Rome; and one would have imagined,
that this misfortune had befallen them only to distinguish with greater lustre
the generosity and goodness of Caesar.  It was an ancient and general opinion
that our city could not subsist without provisions drawn from Egypt. ^447 This
vain and proud nation boasted, that though it was conquered, it nevertheless
fed its conquerors; that, by means of its river, either abundance or scarcity
were entirely at its disposal.  But we have now returned to the Nile his own
harvests, and given him back the provisions he sent us.  Let the Egyptians be
then convinced by their own experience, that they are not necessary to us, and
are only our vassals.  Let them know that their ships do not so much bring us
the provision we stand in need of, as the tribute which they owe us.  And let
them never forget, that we can do without them, but that they can never do
without us.  This most fruitful province had been ruined, had it not worn the
Roman chains.  The Egyptians, in their sovereign, found a deliverer, and a
father.  Astonished at the sight of their granaries, filled without any labor
of their own, they were at a loss to know to whom they owed this foreign and
gratuitous plenty.  The famine of a people, though at such a distance from us,
yet so speedily stopped, served only to let them feel the advantage of living
under our empire.  The Nile may, in other times, have diffused more plenty on
Egypt, but never more glory upon us. ^448 May Heaven, content with this proof
of the people's patience, and the prince's generosity, restore for ever back
to Egypt its ancient fertility!

[Footnote 446: Inundatione id est, ubertate regio fraudata, sic opem caesaris
invocavit, ut solet amnem suum.]

[Footnote 447: Percrebueratantiquitas urbem nostram nisi opibus Aegypti ali
sustentarique non posse.  Superbat ventosa et insolens natio, quod victorem
quidem populum pasceret tamen, quodque in suo flumine, in suis manibus, vel
abundantia nostra vel fames esset.  Refudimus Nilo suas copias, Recepit
frumenta quae miserat, deportatasque messes revexit.]

[Footnote 448: Nilus Aegypto quidem saepe, sed gloriae nostrae nunquam largior
fluxit.]

     Pliny's reproach to the Egyptians, for their vain and foolish pride, with
regard to the inundations of the Nile, points out one of their most peculiar
characteristics, and recals to my mind a fine passage of Ezekiel, where God
thus speaks to Pharaoh, one of their kings; Behold, I am against thee,
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his
rivers, which hath said, My river is: my own, and I have made it for myself.
^449 God perceived an insupportable pride in the heart of this prince, a sense
of security and confidence in the inundations of the Nile, independent
entirely of the influences of Heaven; as though the happy effects of this
inundation had been owing to nothing but his own care and labor, or those of
his predecessors; the river is mine, and I have made it.

[Footnote 449: Ezek. xxix. 3, 9.]

     Before I conclude this second part, which treats of the manners of the
Egyptians, I think it incumbent on me to direct the attention of my readers to
different passages scattered in the history of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and
Moses, which confirm and illustrate part of what we meet with in profane
authors upon this subject.  They will there observe the perfect polity which
reigned in Egypt, both in the court and the rest of the kingdom; the vigilance
of the prince, who was informed of all transactions, had a regular council, a
chosen number of ministers, armies ever well maintained and disciplined, and
of every order of soldiery, horse, foot, armed chariots; intendants in all the
provinces; overseers or guardians of the public granaries; wise and exact
dispensers of the corn lodged in them; a court composed of great officers of
the crown, a captain of his guards, a chief cup-bearer, a master of his
pantry, in a word, all things that compose a prince's household, and
constitute a magnificent court.  But above all these, the readers will admire
the fear in which the threatenings of God were held, the inspector of all
actions, and the judge of kings themselves; and the horror the Egyptians had
for adultery, which was acknowledged to be a crime of so heinous a nature,
that it alone was capable of bringing destruction on a nation. ^450

[Footnote 450: Gen. xii. 10-20.]