The Martyrdom of Man - Winwood Reade (golden son ebook txt) 📗
- Author: Winwood Reade
- Performer: -
Book online «The Martyrdom of Man - Winwood Reade (golden son ebook txt) 📗». Author Winwood Reade
the rich banks of a river flowing through desert lands are always liable to
be attacked by the wandering shepherd hordes who resort to the waterside
in summer, when the wilderness pasture is dried up. There is nothing
such tribes desire better than to conquer the corn-growing people of the
river lands, and to make them pay a tribute of grain when the crops are
taken in. The Egyptians, as soon as they had won their harvests from the
flood, were obliged to defend them against the robbers of the desert, and
out of such wars arose a military caste. These allied themselves with the
intellectual caste, who were also priests, for among the primitive nations
religion and science were invariably combined. In this manner the
bravest and wisest of the Egyptians rose above the vulgar crowd, and the
nation was divided into two great classes, the rulers and the ruled.
Then oppression continued the work which war and famine had begun.
The priests announced, and the armies executed, the divine decrees. The
people were reduced to servitude. The soldiers discovered the gold and
emerald mines of the adjoining hills, and filled their dark recesses with
chained slaves and savage overseers. They became invaders; they
explored distant lands with the spear. Communications with Syria and
the fragrant countries at the mouth of the Red Sea, first opened by means
of war, were continued by means of commerce. Foreign produce became
an element of Egyptian life. The privileged classes found it necessary to
be rich. Formerly the priests had merely salted the bodies of the dead;
now a fashionable corpse must be embalmed, at an expense of two
hundred and fifty pounds, with asphalt from the Dead Sea and spices
from the Somali groves; costly incense must be burnt on the altars of the
gods; aristocratic heads must recline on ivory stools; fine ladies must
glitter with gold ornaments and precious stones, and must be served by
waiting-maids and pages with woolly hair and velvety black skins. War
and agriculture were no longer sufficient to supply these patrician wants.
It was no longer sufficient that the people should feed on dates and the
course doura-bread, while the wheat which they raised was sold by their
masters for gewgaws and perfumes. Manufactures were established;
slaves laboured at a thousand looms; the linen goods of Egypt became
celebrated throughout the world. Laboratories were opened; remarkable
discoveries were made. The Egyptian priests distilled brandy and sweet
waters. They used the blow-pipe, and were far advanced in the chemical
processes of art. They fabricated glass mosaics, and counterfeited
precious stones and porcelain of exquisite transparency and delicately
blended hues. With the fruits of these inventions they adorned their daily
life, and attracted into Egypt the riches of other lands.
Thus, when Nature selects a people to endow them with glory and with
wealth, her first proceeding is to massacre their bodies, her second to
debauch their minds. She begins with famine, pestilence and war; next,
force and rapacity above, chains and slavery below. She uses evil as the
raw material of good; though her aim is always noble, her earliest means
are base and cruel. But as soon as a certain point is reached she washes
her black and bloody hands, and uses agents of a higher kind. Having
converted the animal instinct of self-defence into the ravenous lust of
wealth and power, that also she transforms into ambition of a pure and
lofty kind. At first knowledge is sought only for the things which it will
buy—the daily bread indispensable to life, and those trinkets of body and
mind which vanity demands. Yet those low desires do not always and
entirely possess the human soul. Wisdom is like the heiress of the novel
who is at first courted only for her wealth, but whom the fortune-hunter
learns afterwards to love for herself alone.
At first sight there seems little in the arts and sciences of Egypt which
cannot be traced to the enlightened selfishness of the priestly caste. For
in the earlier times it was necessary for the priests to labour unceasingly
to preserve the power which they had usurped. It was necessary to
overawe not only the people who worked in the fields, but their own
dangerous allies, the military class; to make religion not only mysterious
but magnificent; not only to predict the precise hour of the rising of the
waters, or the eclipses of the moon, but also to adopt and nurture the fine
arts, to dazzle the public with temples, monuments, and paintings. Above
all, it was necessary to prepare a system of government which should
keep the labouring classes in subjection and yet stimulate them to labour
indefatigably for the state; which should strip them of all the rewards of
industry and yet keep that industry alive. Expediency will therefore
account for much that the Egyptian intellect produced, but it certainly will
not account for all. The invention of hieroglyphics is alone sufficient to
prove that higher motives were at work than mere political calculation
and the appetite of gold. For writing was an invention which at no time
could have added in a palpable manner to the wealth or power of the
upper classes, and which yet could not have been finished to a system
without a vast expenditure of time and toil. It could not have been the
work of a single man, but of several men labouring in the same direction,
and in its early beginnings must have appeared as unpractical, as truly
scientific to them, as the study of solar chemistry and the observation of
the double stars to us. Besides, the intense and faithful labour which is
conspicuous in all the Egyptian works of art could only have been
inspired by that enthusiasm which belongs to noble minds.
We may fairly presume that Egypt once possessed its chivalry of the
intellect, its heroic age, and that the violent activity of thought generated
by the love of life and developed by the love of power was raised to its
full zenith by the passion for art and science, for the beautiful and the
true.
At first the Nile valley was divided into a number of independent states,
each possessing its own corporation of priests and soldiers, its own laws
and system of taxation, its own tutelary god and shrine, but each a
member of one body, united by the belief in one religion, and assembling
from time to time to worship the national gods in an appointed place.
There, according to general agreement ratified by solemn oaths, all feuds
were suspended, all weapons laid aside. There also, under the shelter of
the sanctuary, property was secure, and the surplus commodities of the
various districts could be conveniently interchanged. In such a place,
frequented by vast crowds of pilgrims and traders, a great city would
naturally arise, and such it seems probable was the origin of Thebes.
But Egypt, which possesses a simple undivided form, and which is
nourished by one great arterial stream, appears destined to be surmounted
by a single head, and we perceive in the dim dawn of history a revolution
taking place, and Menes, the Egyptian Charlemagne, founding an empire
upon the ruins of local governments, and inspiring the various tribes with
the sentiment of nationality. Thebes remained the sacred city, but a new
capital, Memphis, was built at the other end of the valley, not far from the
spot where Cairo now stands.
By degrees the Egyptian empire assumed a consolidated form. A regular
constitution was established and a ritual prescribed. The classes were
organised in a more effective manner, and were not at first too strictly
fixed. All were at liberty to intermarry, excepting only the swineherds,
who were regarded as unclean. The system of government became
masterly, and the servitude of the people became complete. Designs of
imperial magnitude were accomplished, some of them gigantic but
useless, mere exploits of naked human strength, others structures of true
grandeur and utility. The valley was adorned with splendid monuments
and temples; colossal statues were erected, which rose above the houses
like the towers and spires of our cathedral towns. An army of labourers
was employed against the Nile. The course of the mighty stream was
altered; its waters were snatched from its bosom and stored up in Lake
Moeris, an artificial basin hollowed out of an extensive swamp, and
thence were conducted by a system of canals into the neighbouring
desert, which they changed to smiling fields. For the Sahara can always
be revived. It is barren only because it receives no rain.
The Empire consisted of three estates—the Monarch, the Army, and the
Church. There were in theory no limits to the power of the king. His
authority was derived directly from the gods. He was called “the Sun”;
he was the head of the religion and the state; he was the supreme judge
and lawgiver; he commanded the army and led it to war. But in reality
his power was controlled and reduced to mere pageantry by a parliament
of priests. He was elected by the military class, but as soon as he was
crowned he was initiated into the mysteries and subjected to the severe
discipline of the holy order. No slave or hireling might approach his
person: the lords in waiting, with the state parasol and the ostrich-feather
fans, were princes of the blood; his other attendants were invariably
priests. The royal time was filled and measured by routine: laws were
laid down in the holy books for the order and nature of the king’s
occupations. At daybreak he examined and dispatched his
correspondence; he then put on his robes and attended divine service in
the temple. Extracts were read from those holy books which contained
the sayings and actions of distinguished men, and these were followed by
a sermon from the High Priest. He extolled the virtues of the reigning
sovereign, but criticised severely the lives of those who had preceded
him—a post-mortem examination to which the king knew that he would
be subjected in his turn.
He was forbidden to commit any kind of excess: he was restricted to a
plain diet of veal and goose, and to a measured quantity of wine. The
laws hung over him day and night; they governed his public and private
action: they followed him even to the recesses of his chamber, and
appointed a set time for the embraces of his queen. He could not punish a
single person except in accordance with the code; the judges took oath
before the king that they would disobey the king if he ordered them to do
anything contrary to law. The ministry were responsible for the actions
of their master, and they guarded their own safety. They made it
impossible for him to forfeit that reverence and affection which the
ignorant and the religious always entertain for their anointed king. He
was adored as a god when living, and when he died he was mourned by
the whole nation as if each man had lost a well-beloved child. During
seventy-two days the temples were closed; lamentations filled the air; and
the people fasted, abstaining from flesh and wine, cooked food,
ointments, baths, and the company of their wives.
The Army appears to have been severely disciplined. To run twenty
miles before breakfast was part of the ordinary drill. The amusements of
the soldiers were athletic sports and martial games. Yet they were not
merely fighting men. They were also farmers. Each warrior received
from the state twelve acres of choice land; these gave him a solid interest
in the prosperity of the fatherland and in the maintenance of civil peace.
The most powerful of the three estates was undoubtedly the Church. In
the priesthood were included not only the ministers of religion, but also
the
Comments (0)