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he put himself to death, and left Egypt rich for ever. Yet his empire did not last beyond the fourth generation: but there remained, even in Tiberius's time*, magnificent mo. numents, which shewed the extent of it, and the quantity of the tributes paid him. Egypt soon returned to her pacific disposi tiont: it has even been said, that Sesostris, after his conquests, was the first to soften the manners of the Egyptians, for fear of revolts, If there be any truth in this, it could only be a precaution for his successors. As for himself, wise and absolute as he was, one does not see what he could fear from his people, who adored him. But besides, the thought was unworthy so great a prince; and it was providing badly for the security of his conquests, to suffer the courage of his subjects to be weakened. It is true, indeed, this great empire stood not long: some way or other it could not but fall. Division took place in Egypt. In the time of Anysis the blind, Sabacon the Ethiopian invaded the kingdom: he used the people as well, and did as great things there, as any one of the natural kings. Neyer was there seen a moderation like his; for after a happy reign of fifty years, he returned into Ethiopia, in obedience to some warnings he believed to be divine. The kingdom thus abandoned fell into the hands of Setho, priest of Vulcan, a religious prince in his way, but no warriour, and who completely enervated the soldiers, by ill-treating military men. From

*Tac. Ann. ii.

Nymphod. lib. xii. rer. barb. post Herod. -
Herod, & Diod. ibid.

that time Egypt supported herself only by a foreign force. A sort of anarchy prevails. We find twelve kings chosen by the people, who shared among them the government of the kingdom. It was they who built those twelve palaces which composed the Labyrinth. Though Egypt could not forget her magnificence, she was weak and divided under these twelve princes. One of them, named Psammeticus, made himself sole master by the help of foreigners. Egypt revived, and continued rather powerful for five or six reigns. At last that ancient kingdom, after having stood about sixteen hundred years, weakened by the kings of Babylon, and by Cyrus, fell a prey to Cambyses, the maddest of all the princes.

Such as have well understood the temper of Egypt, have acknowledged that she was not warlike*: you have seen the reasons. She had lived in peace about thirteen hundred years, when she produced her first warriour, who was Sesostris: but notwithstanding her militia was so carefully kept up, we see, toward the end, her whole strength lying in foreign troops, which is one of the greatest defects a state can have. But human things are never perfect, and it is no easy matter to enjoy together, in perfection, the arts of peace and the advantages of war. It is very well to have subsisted sixteen centuries. Some Ethiopians reigned at Thebes in that interval; among others Sabacon, and, as is thought, Tir

Strab. lib. xvii.

hakah. But Egypt reaped this benefit from the excellent constitution of her state, that the foreigners, who conquered her, embraced her manners in preference to introducing their own: thus in changing masters, she did not change her government. She could not easily bear the Persians, whose yoke she often attempted to shake off. But she was not warlike enough to support herself, by her own force, against so great a power; and the Grecians who defended her, being taken up elsewhere, were forced to abandon her, so that she always fell back into the subjection of her first masters; but ever obstinately wedded to her ancient customs, and incapable of abandoning the maxims of her first kings; she retained a great many of them under the Ptolemies, but then the mixture of the Grecian and Asiatic manners was become so great, that ancient Egypt could scarce any more be known.

We must not forget, that the times of the ancient kings of Egypt were very uncertain, even in the history of the Egyptians. We find it hard to place Osimandyas, of whom we see such magnificent monuments in Diodorus, and such glorious marks of his battles. The Egyptians seem not to have known the father of Sesostris, whom Herodotus and Diodorus have not named. His power is also more declared by the monuments he left all over the earth, than by the memoirs of his country; and these rea

Diod. i. sect. 2.

sons shew us that we are not to believe, as some do, that what Egypt published of her antiquities was always as exact as she boasted, since she herself is so uncertain about the most illustrious periods of her monarchy.

IV. The old and new Assyrians, the Medes, and Cyrus.

THE great empire of the Egyptians is, in a manner, distinct from others, and has, as you see, no long series. What remains for us to say is better supported, and has more precise dates.

Nevertheless we have very few things certain concerning the first empire of the Assyrians; but, in short, place its beginnings in whatever time we will, according to the different opinions of historians*, you will see, that, when the world was divided into several petty states, whose princes thought rather of preserving than augmenting their dominions, Ninus, more enterprising and powerful than his neighbours, overthrew them one after another, and pushed his conquests very far in the East. His wife Semiramis, who joined to ambition, which is common enough to her sex, a courage and consistency of conduct not usually found in it, supported the vast designs of her husband, and completed the formation of that monarchy.

It was doubtless great, as is plain from the greatness of Nineveh, which is consi

Diod. ii. Just. 2.

dered above that of Babylon*. But as the most judicious historians do not make that monarchy so ancient as others represent it to us, neither do they make it so great. The petty kingdoms, whereof it must have been composed, stood too long for its being as ancient and extensive as the fabling Ctesias, and those, who took it upon his word, describe it to ust. It is true, that Plato, who was a curious observer of antiquity, makes the kingdom of Troy, in Priam's time, a dependency of the Assyrian empire. But we see nothing of this in Homer, who, in the design he had to set forth the glory of Greece, would not have forgotten that circumstance; and we may believe, that the Assyrians were but little known westward, since a poet so intelligent, and so anxious to adorn his poem with whatever belonged to his subject, has never once introduced them.

However, according to the computation which we have judged the most reasonable, the time of the siege of Troy was the most. glorious time of the Assyrians, seeing it was that of the conquests of Semiramis ; but the fact is, they extended only towards the East. Those who flatter her the most, make her turn her arms that way. She had had too great a share in the counsels and victories of Ninus, not to follow his designs, in other respects so suited to the situation of her empire: and I believe it cannot be

* Strab. xvi. Herod. i. Dion. Hal. i. App. init, op.
+ Gen. xiv. 1, 2. Jud. iii. 8. Plat. de leg.lii.
Just. i. Diod. ii.

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