I just finished reading the whol TL, great work and can't wait to see how it all develops
Horus Triumphant - an Alternate Antiquity timeline
- Thread starter phoenix101
- Start date
Always good to hear someone's enjoying the TL!
Regarding the TL: next update will probably be sometime next week, or if I manage to find some free time perhaps this weekend.
Also, if you don't mind, i would like to pick your brain about the wider helenistic and mediterranian world for a TL I'm planning
Apologies for the recent lack of updates, some stuff in my personal life has left me rather drained and without much time for writing. I hope to get back to it in the coming weeks.
Yeah, no problem, you can PM me or use this thread.
68. Vagrants and visionaries: the later reign of Raherkhepeshef, part 1
68. Vagrants and visionaries: the later reign of Raherkhepeshef, part 1
To forego decadence, to eschew foreign customs
To feed the poor, to clothe the naked
To worship the gods, to honour the past
That is what it means to uphold ma’at
That is what it means to rule justly
- Excerpt from ‘The Teachings of Itamun’
In 230 BCE the Kingdom of Egypt was, by all accounts, a wealthy and powerful kingdom. Greek sources mention the opulence of its court, Carthaginian records show that trade with the land of the Nile increased year-over-year ever since the establishment of the Thirty-Second Dynasty: despite the depredations inflicted during the Argead occupation it seems that Egypt recovered relatively quickly. And at the centre of it all, as was usual in Egypt, stood the pharaoh: when Djeserkheperkara Setep-en-Amun Raherkhepeshef ascended to the Throne of Horus in 252 BCE he faced the daunting task of unifying the country and keeping out the Macedonians. He had taken up the role that was once performed by the likes of Narmer, Montuhotep II, Ahmose and Psamtek II: he would not only found a new dynasty, he would evict invaders and unite the realm, thus restoring the proper order of things.
And after two decades on the throne he largely seems to have succeeded: after rescuing the country from internal division and foreign occupation he had instated an effective, if autocratic, government: from Memphis a legion of scribes, directed by the tjaty Horseneb, took account of the country’s affairs. Fields and herds were counted, taxes tallied, mines and ports inspected; at regular intervals scribes from Memphis visited the capitals of the sepat (nomes) to make sure the local heri-tep (nomarch, or chief) and his bureaucracy managed the affairs well. There thus was a constant flow of information from the country to Memphis, which required a large amount of learned scribes to process. Knowledgeable as he must have been about his country’s history and traditions Raherkhepeshef was well-aware of the importance of an efficient bureaucracy, which, by necessity, was to be staffed by literate scribes.
The chaos of the past half-century meant that at the start of his reign he had to look all over the country to recruit scribes: many were poached from temple establishments, others were men who had learned to read and write from acquaintances or family members. In order to ensure a steady supply of educated scribes Raherkhepeshef established two large scribal schools: one at Memphis and one at Waset (Thebes). There pupils would be instructed in the arts of the scribe: writing and reading contemporary Egyptian in both its zekha-ni-shat [1] and hieroglyphic forms, as well as education in Classical Egyptian [2], which was necessary for understanding literature and was still employed by the Thirty-Second Dynasty in inscriptions and official proclamations. Those sent to Memphis and Waset were often students deemed promising at local scribal schools or temples; quite often themselves sons of scribes or second sons of military settlers (the senenu) at the scribal schools they were subject to strict discipline, many hours per day were spent copying old texts, often ones detailing and glorifying the role of scribes, while any sign of disobedience or lax discipline was dealt with brutally: beatings were not uncommon. The establishment of the ‘Great Schools’, as they became known, ended up being one of Raherkhepeshef’s most consequential decisions: it enabled the rise of a educated scribal class which would populate the halls of power well-beyond the days of his dynasty.
Working his ways through piles of papyri, compiling records and entrusting them to ink, the common scribe thus rose to prominence during the Thirty-Second Dynasty. Still there remained those who looked down upon them: often, in this case, from the saddle of a war-horse. When Raherkhepeshef marched down the Nile from Lower Nubia he did not do so alone: he had his lieutenants, local warlords who decided to support him and officials instated by the Argeads who switched sides. In the wake of the reunification of Egypt it was them who formed the new elite of the kingdom: many of them were granted estates, were named heri-tep of a sepat or were granted a position at court. True to their martial origin many of them became a hereditary military aristocracy bound to the court and the dynasty, Raherkhepeshef however was wary of them establishing some kind of local powerbase: thus they were never allowed to be in charge of a sepat for long by establishing a system of rotation. Despite reservations about their position many of them still became rich and powerful through royal patronage: lavish tombs, ministries and priesthoods were granted to them, a sizeable part of the scribal bureaucracy (although crucially not all) was recruited from their ranks; often younger sons with fewer prospects than their elder siblings. Theirs thus was a distinct class, a newly established martial aristocracy deeply intertwined with the monarchy and crucial for the government of the realm. The name by which this class was known was testament to their immodesty: Raherkhepeshef had given many of them the title of wer, meaning ‘Great One’, and thus Egypt’s proud new aristocracy came to be known as the weru, the Great Ones.
The weru however were not unanimously praised for their governance, even if during the reign of Raherkhepeshef most of them turned out to be relatively capable: regular inspections by scribes from the capital made sure that the majority of them tried to run a competent and not too corrupt administration. Even more daunting must have been the prospect of a royal inspection: Raherkhepeshef remained rather restless throughout most of his reign and spent much of this time away from the capital, travelling all over the country, visiting the building sites of his monuments and other projects, and he was not above personally inspecting the local government. Where other monarchs were relatively content with leaving the administration to their underlings Raherkhepeshef then gave an example of the opposite: he took an active interest in the government of his kingdom. And this he did quite successfully, it seems, throughout the first two decades of his reign there is ample evidence for royal interests beyond the palace: every year the king was present at the Opet-festival in Waset, an important ceremony of kingship. He is known to have personally inspected the border fortresses on both flanks of the Delta and he, for some time, personally oversaw the great irrigation projects in the Fayyum. Most frequent however were his visits to the building sites of his monuments, most notably the Great Temple of Ra at Iunu and his own tomb complex at Abdju.
Age however was starting to catch up with the king: when he ascended to the Throne of Horus in 252 Raherkhepeshef was already 40 years old, and as the years progressed the pharaoh increasingly had to rely on his ministers. Most prominent was the vizier Horseneb, who not only was the chief bureaucrat but he also held the important post of Overseer of the King’s Works, making him responsible for the many building and infrastructural projects throughout the Two Lands. But the man who truly comes to the fore due to Raherkhepeshef’s withdrawal from the public was his son and heir, Ptahmose. Besides being the heir he was also governor of the city of Rhakote, a crucial position since the city’s increasing prominence as a centre of trade, he was also the ‘General of generals’, the commander of Egypt’s army. He was, much like his father, a martial figure: his images too show a tall, athletic figure often on horseback or commanding his soldiers. He was intelligent, he apparently also spoke Greek and Persian, and a capable administrator: Carthaginian sources mention his fair treatment of their traders during disputes with Egyptians in Rhakote. Indeed, at the time it must have seemed as if not much would change once Ptahmose himself would sit on the Throne of Horus.
Starting in 229 Ptahmose thus took over many of his father’s duties, with the pharaoh himself increasingly ill and unable to leave the palace. It was the start of the end of a momentous reign, which saw Egypt liberated and reinvigorated. If one, like the king himself so often did, travelled through the country they would find a country no longer wrecked by rebellion and oppressed by foreign armies but a confident and prosperous; that, if nothing else, would be Raherkhepeshef’s most important legacy. Despite all that there still remained those unhappy with the state of affairs in Egypt, who thought that not enough had been done to properly restore the kingdom. The best example of such a critic was Sasobek, one of the senior scribes at the Per-Kheperu. A dour, severe bureaucrat who rose to his rank not thanks to family connections or wealth but due to his talents he typified, to later generations, the ideal scribe. He had been a disciple of the great Itamun himself, and some traditions state that it was to Sasobek that Itamun had dictated his teachings. Whatever the case it does seem that Sasobek was dedicated to the memory and teachings of his former master; the supremacy and centrality of the king, the unity of Egypt, those were the concepts to which Sasobek himself was dedicated. While unwavering in his loyalty to the king he still could not help but criticise his policies, which a harsher ruler than Raherkhepeshef, or his son, might have responded to with demotion, exile or worse.
Sasobek justified his criticism of his ruler by invoking ma’at, that most useful of concepts for Egyptian moralists. In order to uphold the proper order of things the pharaoh should rule justly, appease the gods and behave properly. Raherkhepeshef, although laudable for chasing out the Argeads and unifying the country, still did not live up to that in Sasobek’s eyes: allowing the weru to rule the sepat was a grave error according to him: already during the 230’s several of them had managed to extract hereditary privileges from the court, he argued that while such arrangements might benefit the aristocracy, directly ruled sepat would benefit all. Other objections of his included the remaining presence, and in some cases increasing presence, of foreigners in the country, the granting of estates to the military and the introduction of coinage. For Sasobek the ideal Egypt was that of the distant past, when rulers like Khufu ruled absolutely. He lambasted military expenses, Asia, so he claimed, should be ignored, trade kept to a minimum so that the pharaoh could dedicate himself solely to the upkeep of Egypt and his duties to the gods. Only then would the halcyon days of the Old Kingdom return. Deeply impractical, practically none of his proposals were ever seriously considered, but his and Itamun’s writings did give rise to a movement which explicitly looked to the distant past for inspiration. Most important however was the tacit acceptance of the monarch of Sasobek’s criticism: it signalled to the bureaucratic class that it would be possible to remonstrate, to steer the ruler in another direction, which men more practical and ambitious than Sasobek would make use of.
Footnotes
To forego decadence, to eschew foreign customs
To feed the poor, to clothe the naked
To worship the gods, to honour the past
That is what it means to uphold ma’at
That is what it means to rule justly
- Excerpt from ‘The Teachings of Itamun’
In 230 BCE the Kingdom of Egypt was, by all accounts, a wealthy and powerful kingdom. Greek sources mention the opulence of its court, Carthaginian records show that trade with the land of the Nile increased year-over-year ever since the establishment of the Thirty-Second Dynasty: despite the depredations inflicted during the Argead occupation it seems that Egypt recovered relatively quickly. And at the centre of it all, as was usual in Egypt, stood the pharaoh: when Djeserkheperkara Setep-en-Amun Raherkhepeshef ascended to the Throne of Horus in 252 BCE he faced the daunting task of unifying the country and keeping out the Macedonians. He had taken up the role that was once performed by the likes of Narmer, Montuhotep II, Ahmose and Psamtek II: he would not only found a new dynasty, he would evict invaders and unite the realm, thus restoring the proper order of things.
And after two decades on the throne he largely seems to have succeeded: after rescuing the country from internal division and foreign occupation he had instated an effective, if autocratic, government: from Memphis a legion of scribes, directed by the tjaty Horseneb, took account of the country’s affairs. Fields and herds were counted, taxes tallied, mines and ports inspected; at regular intervals scribes from Memphis visited the capitals of the sepat (nomes) to make sure the local heri-tep (nomarch, or chief) and his bureaucracy managed the affairs well. There thus was a constant flow of information from the country to Memphis, which required a large amount of learned scribes to process. Knowledgeable as he must have been about his country’s history and traditions Raherkhepeshef was well-aware of the importance of an efficient bureaucracy, which, by necessity, was to be staffed by literate scribes.
The chaos of the past half-century meant that at the start of his reign he had to look all over the country to recruit scribes: many were poached from temple establishments, others were men who had learned to read and write from acquaintances or family members. In order to ensure a steady supply of educated scribes Raherkhepeshef established two large scribal schools: one at Memphis and one at Waset (Thebes). There pupils would be instructed in the arts of the scribe: writing and reading contemporary Egyptian in both its zekha-ni-shat [1] and hieroglyphic forms, as well as education in Classical Egyptian [2], which was necessary for understanding literature and was still employed by the Thirty-Second Dynasty in inscriptions and official proclamations. Those sent to Memphis and Waset were often students deemed promising at local scribal schools or temples; quite often themselves sons of scribes or second sons of military settlers (the senenu) at the scribal schools they were subject to strict discipline, many hours per day were spent copying old texts, often ones detailing and glorifying the role of scribes, while any sign of disobedience or lax discipline was dealt with brutally: beatings were not uncommon. The establishment of the ‘Great Schools’, as they became known, ended up being one of Raherkhepeshef’s most consequential decisions: it enabled the rise of a educated scribal class which would populate the halls of power well-beyond the days of his dynasty.
Working his ways through piles of papyri, compiling records and entrusting them to ink, the common scribe thus rose to prominence during the Thirty-Second Dynasty. Still there remained those who looked down upon them: often, in this case, from the saddle of a war-horse. When Raherkhepeshef marched down the Nile from Lower Nubia he did not do so alone: he had his lieutenants, local warlords who decided to support him and officials instated by the Argeads who switched sides. In the wake of the reunification of Egypt it was them who formed the new elite of the kingdom: many of them were granted estates, were named heri-tep of a sepat or were granted a position at court. True to their martial origin many of them became a hereditary military aristocracy bound to the court and the dynasty, Raherkhepeshef however was wary of them establishing some kind of local powerbase: thus they were never allowed to be in charge of a sepat for long by establishing a system of rotation. Despite reservations about their position many of them still became rich and powerful through royal patronage: lavish tombs, ministries and priesthoods were granted to them, a sizeable part of the scribal bureaucracy (although crucially not all) was recruited from their ranks; often younger sons with fewer prospects than their elder siblings. Theirs thus was a distinct class, a newly established martial aristocracy deeply intertwined with the monarchy and crucial for the government of the realm. The name by which this class was known was testament to their immodesty: Raherkhepeshef had given many of them the title of wer, meaning ‘Great One’, and thus Egypt’s proud new aristocracy came to be known as the weru, the Great Ones.
The weru however were not unanimously praised for their governance, even if during the reign of Raherkhepeshef most of them turned out to be relatively capable: regular inspections by scribes from the capital made sure that the majority of them tried to run a competent and not too corrupt administration. Even more daunting must have been the prospect of a royal inspection: Raherkhepeshef remained rather restless throughout most of his reign and spent much of this time away from the capital, travelling all over the country, visiting the building sites of his monuments and other projects, and he was not above personally inspecting the local government. Where other monarchs were relatively content with leaving the administration to their underlings Raherkhepeshef then gave an example of the opposite: he took an active interest in the government of his kingdom. And this he did quite successfully, it seems, throughout the first two decades of his reign there is ample evidence for royal interests beyond the palace: every year the king was present at the Opet-festival in Waset, an important ceremony of kingship. He is known to have personally inspected the border fortresses on both flanks of the Delta and he, for some time, personally oversaw the great irrigation projects in the Fayyum. Most frequent however were his visits to the building sites of his monuments, most notably the Great Temple of Ra at Iunu and his own tomb complex at Abdju.
Age however was starting to catch up with the king: when he ascended to the Throne of Horus in 252 Raherkhepeshef was already 40 years old, and as the years progressed the pharaoh increasingly had to rely on his ministers. Most prominent was the vizier Horseneb, who not only was the chief bureaucrat but he also held the important post of Overseer of the King’s Works, making him responsible for the many building and infrastructural projects throughout the Two Lands. But the man who truly comes to the fore due to Raherkhepeshef’s withdrawal from the public was his son and heir, Ptahmose. Besides being the heir he was also governor of the city of Rhakote, a crucial position since the city’s increasing prominence as a centre of trade, he was also the ‘General of generals’, the commander of Egypt’s army. He was, much like his father, a martial figure: his images too show a tall, athletic figure often on horseback or commanding his soldiers. He was intelligent, he apparently also spoke Greek and Persian, and a capable administrator: Carthaginian sources mention his fair treatment of their traders during disputes with Egyptians in Rhakote. Indeed, at the time it must have seemed as if not much would change once Ptahmose himself would sit on the Throne of Horus.
Starting in 229 Ptahmose thus took over many of his father’s duties, with the pharaoh himself increasingly ill and unable to leave the palace. It was the start of the end of a momentous reign, which saw Egypt liberated and reinvigorated. If one, like the king himself so often did, travelled through the country they would find a country no longer wrecked by rebellion and oppressed by foreign armies but a confident and prosperous; that, if nothing else, would be Raherkhepeshef’s most important legacy. Despite all that there still remained those unhappy with the state of affairs in Egypt, who thought that not enough had been done to properly restore the kingdom. The best example of such a critic was Sasobek, one of the senior scribes at the Per-Kheperu. A dour, severe bureaucrat who rose to his rank not thanks to family connections or wealth but due to his talents he typified, to later generations, the ideal scribe. He had been a disciple of the great Itamun himself, and some traditions state that it was to Sasobek that Itamun had dictated his teachings. Whatever the case it does seem that Sasobek was dedicated to the memory and teachings of his former master; the supremacy and centrality of the king, the unity of Egypt, those were the concepts to which Sasobek himself was dedicated. While unwavering in his loyalty to the king he still could not help but criticise his policies, which a harsher ruler than Raherkhepeshef, or his son, might have responded to with demotion, exile or worse.
Sasobek justified his criticism of his ruler by invoking ma’at, that most useful of concepts for Egyptian moralists. In order to uphold the proper order of things the pharaoh should rule justly, appease the gods and behave properly. Raherkhepeshef, although laudable for chasing out the Argeads and unifying the country, still did not live up to that in Sasobek’s eyes: allowing the weru to rule the sepat was a grave error according to him: already during the 230’s several of them had managed to extract hereditary privileges from the court, he argued that while such arrangements might benefit the aristocracy, directly ruled sepat would benefit all. Other objections of his included the remaining presence, and in some cases increasing presence, of foreigners in the country, the granting of estates to the military and the introduction of coinage. For Sasobek the ideal Egypt was that of the distant past, when rulers like Khufu ruled absolutely. He lambasted military expenses, Asia, so he claimed, should be ignored, trade kept to a minimum so that the pharaoh could dedicate himself solely to the upkeep of Egypt and his duties to the gods. Only then would the halcyon days of the Old Kingdom return. Deeply impractical, practically none of his proposals were ever seriously considered, but his and Itamun’s writings did give rise to a movement which explicitly looked to the distant past for inspiration. Most important however was the tacit acceptance of the monarch of Sasobek’s criticism: it signalled to the bureaucratic class that it would be possible to remonstrate, to steer the ruler in another direction, which men more practical and ambitious than Sasobek would make use of.
Footnotes
- ‘Writing of documents’ i.e. the Demotic script
- This was a version of Egyptian from the Middle Kingdom period (approximately 2040 to 1800 BCE) but it remained in use as the standard literary version of the language and is attested until the Christianisation of Egypt
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Egypt is possibly the most conservative great civilisation to ever exist, to the point that the prestige language still used for inscriptions is an over one and a half thousand year old variant of the language used to the timeline's present. And the complaints from a clearly capable scribe are that they are not conservative enough - coinage and trade are foreign things and being as close as possible to the Egypt of a thousand years or more ago is the ideal state. I love it.
Something else that's crazy? More time elapsed between Khufu and Cleopatra than between Cleopatra and now. (In OT of course. I doubt there'll be a Cleopatra in this TL. Or a Caesar.)
No, but I would love to see a Caesar parallel for the Carthaginians. The Barcids could ironically fit the bill.
Carthage and Greek culture being the bedrock of ittl Europe is very interesting since idk how Carthage would grow.
Maybe Carthage spreads to western Europe and by trade routes while the Greco Persian culture entrenches in the middle East and Central Asia?
Thanks for the likes and comments everyone.
Next update will feature someone who, while not necessarily progressive, will try to introduce somewhat more practical solutions to Egypt's government.
Carthage will be important to what will eventually kind-of, sort-of, constitutes the 'west' in this TL, although not in the way Rome was.
69. Vagrants and visionaries: the later reign of Raherkhepeshef, part 2
69. Vagrants and visionaries: the later reign of Raherkhepeshef, part 2
… the inundations were excellent, harvests were abundant and the price of grain fell, the herds of cattle grew and prospered, bandits were supressed and merchants travelled without harassment, the gods were satisfied and both Egyptians and foreigners praised the King for his wise rule; such prosperity has not been known since the days of antiquity.
- Dynastic record of the reign of Raherkhepeshef
The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on the Throne of Horus in Memphis, was not accountable to any mortal man, or to the Egyptian people in general, but that does not mean that he was beyond all restraint. There was of course the divine to consider, the great gods who the king had to keep on his side by making offerings, building temples and performing rituals, and beyond that he was expected to maintain the rather nebulous concept known to the Egyptians as ma’at. This essentially meant the proper order of things: he had to ensure peace and prosperity, he would need to guard Egypt against its enemies and he would need to maintain the worship of the gods. Beyond that there was of course the support of the elites of the country, the weru and the upper ranks of the priesthoods, the bureaucracy and the court itself, all those the king would need to keep on his side or at least keep them complacent. Raherkhepeshef had managed this well, he was after all the man who had set up the newly-independent Egypt, and it was by his will that prestige and power was granted to those who aided him in the government of his realm.
But at the dawn of the 220’s Djeserkheperkara Setep-en-Amun Raherkhepeshef was a fading man: the precise cause of his declining health is unknown, but he rarely ventured beyond Memphis and its surroundings. It was a moment of great anxiety for the dynasty: despite the presence of a clear and preferred heir in Ptahmose there was a fear of what might happen were the pharaoh to pass away; were internal strife to flare up it could be used by foreign powers to impose their will on Egypt, as the Argeads had done during the final years of the Thirtieth Dynasty [1]. Nor was the fear of such an event entirely unwarranted, as both Egypt’s external and internal situation seemed to deteriorate during those years, and thus the presence of an aged but experienced ruler was preferred over that of a sickly monarch unable to venture beyond his capital.
The internal troubles already surfaced during the late 230’s, when Raherkhepeshef was still firmly in command. The reign of the king had in general been blessed with good inundations and bountiful harvests, but in August 232 the floodwaters did not reach very high, and those of 231 were so low that had the previous years not been bountiful would have meant famine in Egypt. The price of grain rose and with it the discontent of many. Banditry once again was a way out for the most desperate of society: those on the margins, hungry, poor and with nothing to lose. Despite the insistence of dynastic records on the absence of robbers, thieves and plunderers foreign records do mention them. From Carthage to Ephesos, where Egyptian grain fed the masses of the Aegean, to Babylon, chroniclers mention the events in Egypt. A succinct, and most telling, description was given in the temple records at the Esagila in Babylon, where besides the deeds of the Great King priests also noted events abroad: for the year 230 it simply read: ‘the land of Egypt is in turmoil’.
This brief period of malaise, nothing in comparison to the misery of the lasts years of Argead rule, did however briefly revive the spectre of anarchy in Egypt. As hunger spread in some parts of the country so did bands of malcontents who assaulted tax collectors, plundered temples and despoiled tombs. They were often swiftly dealt with: in those areas most plagued by unrest the weru were given permission to form local militias to safeguard the peace. Perhaps the most remarkable detail of this short period of unrest are the locations where these small uprisings took place: parts of the Delta just north of Memphis, the Fayum and the region of Abdju in Upper Egypt were the places most plagued by banditry and rebellion. Not coincidentally those were also the places were Raherkhepeshef’s major construction projects were taking place: discontent seemingly ran high among the conscripted labourers as their rations of grain and beer were slashed, a consequence of the bad harvests. That however was not their sole complaint: the conditions under which they laboured were harsh, they had to live in shacks, there was always a shortage of fresh water and the punishments doled out by overseers were often arbitrary and harsh. And thus while some of the conscripts chose to rebel many more decided to go on strike: and while in due time they went back to work, under threat of the whip or because of promises and bribes, the whole affair had shown that Raherkhepeshef’s monumental construction plans perhaps went too far and too fast for many of his subjects.
Luckily for Egypt the situation improved in 229: as the floodwaters rose the nilometer on the isle of Abu (Elephantine) predicted a bountiful harvest. But as Egypt recovered, its king declined: the once powerful pharaoh was increasingly old and infirm, which Timarchos of Rhakote, a Greek historian living in Egypt, ascribed to the unrest of the preceding year. According to him Raherkhepeshef was so shocked by his people’s willingness to rebel that it caused his illness. Whatever the case it was from the summer of 229 onwards that the king cloistered himself from the outside world and, increasingly, from affairs of state. There were two men who now stepped forward to govern the realm: one was, naturally, Ptahmose, eldest son of the king and heir to the throne. The other was the tjaty (vizier) Horseneb. Few men had risen as fast as he had during the reign of Raherkhepeshef, but he had shown himself a capable administrator and crucial ally of the king in the government of the country. It seems an arrangement was reached between the two of them: Horseneb would continue to oversee the bureaucracy and internal affairs while Ptahmose would perform the rituals that were required of a king of Upper and Lower Egypt and would direct the kingdom’s foreign affairs.
And for some time this arrangement seemed to work, and under Horseneb’s careful stewardship the country recovered quickly from the recent turmoil, as the system managed itself: in accordance with the waters of the Nile farmers sowed, harvested and laboured, they paid homage to the gods and celebrated their festivals, scribes and officials travelled the country, documenting wealth and collecting taxes while merchants peddled their goods wherever they could find a market. Ptahmose however faced a more difficult job, for while busy with his liturgical duties, he also had foreign affairs to consider, for Egypt’s position in the Eastern Mediterranean had worsened in the past decade. With the entire seaboard of the Eastern Mediterranean, from Halikarnassos to Gaza, with the exception of a strip of Syrian coast, under Demetrian rule after Perdiccas’ victory in the Second War of the Argead Succession [2] Egypt was once again vulnerable to a combined land-sea assault. It’s earlier attempts to ally itself with Macedonia ended up being for naught, for that country had since also fallen on hard times [3]. As Egypt had proven itself to be a crucial source of grain for the great cities of the Aegean it became a tempting target for the Demetrian Great King, as it would also promote his image as a true heir of Philip and Alexander, by restoring a lost satrapy to the empire. From his post at Rhakote this was perhaps more clear to Ptahmose than to Horseneb in Memphis, but the crown prince managed to pressure the vizier into granting additional funds for the military: at great expense shipbuilding material was bought from the Carthaginians, the navy expanded and new treaties signed with both Nabatean and Libyan tribes, agents were sent abroad as far away as Iberia to recruit mercenaries. Envoys were also sent to Eupatoria, hoping to convince Ptolemaios to ally against a common enemy. Ptahmose wanted to make sure that if war broke out, Egypt would be ready.
Statue of a Thirty-Second Dynasty official
As the years progressed however, with Raherkhepeshef remaining alive but ill, tensions arose between the two men who governed Egypt. The tjaty Horseneb, who rose from humble beginnings to being one of Egypt’s most powerful men, increasingly resented the crown prince, who had been granted everything in life. It seems to have been a clash of character and ambition: Horseneb was dutiful, stern and dedicated, while Ptahmose was a boisterous and proud man, and while certainly devoted to his duties the crown prince also was more of an autocrat than his father: criticism he accepted until a certain point, one which Horseneb had certainly reached halfway through 227. With his base of support mostly among the bureaucracy Horseneb increasingly went out of his way to block initiatives of Ptahmose; most notably his suggested renovation of Darius’ canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea, which also had been attempted but left unfinished by the Argeads. Ptahmose saw it as a great opportunity to increase trade, but Horseneb saw it as a waste of resources and refused to allocate conscript labour to the project: this was largely in line with the wishes of the bureaucracy at the Per-Kheperu, increasingly suspicious of foreign merchants the scribes and bureaucrats at Memphis supported their chief, in contrast to Ptahmose who viewed trade as an important aspect of the economy, perhaps related to his governship of Rhakote. Another confrontation followed later that year, when Netjeruhotep, brother of the pharaoh and high priest at Ipetsut [4] passed away. Large amounts of land in Upper Egypt, both agricultural estates on the banks of the Nile and several quarries and mines in the Eastern Desert, belonged to the estate of the priesthood of Amun at Ipetsut, and thus the position of high priest was one of great importance. Raherkhepeshef had installed his own brother in Waset in order to maintain those resources for the royal family, but now the priesthood of Amun decided to nominate one of their own to the highest position, which was confirmed by the oracle located at the temple. The man in question, a certain Nebamun, had previously been one of the senior scribes at Memphis and thus was an ally of Horseneb.
The court at the Per-Kheperu, and thus the pharaoh himself, seemingly accepted this, although it is not known how well Raherkhepeshef himself was at this time. From Rhakote however came howls of discontent: Ptahmose saw the appointment of someone outside the royal family as seditious, and thus he protested the move to his father and he also sent a team of ‘investigators’ to Waset to ascertain the legality of Nebamun’s ascent. Those investigators, many of whom were armed, soon uncovered a litany of liturgical improprieties: the oracle had not been consulted well, bribes had been handed out and Nebamun did not even properly cleanse himself before performing rituals. Promptly he was removed from office and instead Raherkhepeshef, a younger brother of Ptahmose, was now installed as the new high priest of Amun, with many of the ‘investigators’ remaining in Ipetsut to guarantee his safety. Ptahmose now also went one step further: he petitioned his father to remove the clearly treacherous Horseneb as tjaty, something which the king refused to do, although it is unclear in what condition he was at the time. Horseneb retaliated by resigning his position as Overseer of the King’s Works, and by granting that position to Usiremhat, another of Raherkhepeshef’s sons and Ptahmose’s younger brother. As one of the younger sons of the king Usiremhat had never been prominent, later sources report he led a life of debauched alcoholism at court and served as a priest of Ptah in Memphis, but Horseneb now undertook action to promote the young man as a worthy heir.
This then was the escalation which really triggered Ptahmose: Horseneb was clearly preparing the way to side-line him completely, something had to be done. Late in the summer of 226, just after the inundation, Raherkhepeshef made a rare trip outside the palace quarters. He visited the building-site at Iunu, where the recently conscripted labourers were continuing their work on the Great Temple of Ra. While on his way back to Memphis suddenly the royal entourage was assailed by troops, and while well-armed the pharaoh’s bodyguard were outnumbered and outmatched: their surprise must have been great when they saw that the commander of their assailants was none other than the crown prince Ptahmose himself. He revealed to his shocked and ailing father that a coup was underway: Horseneb was preparing to assassinate both king and prince and would then install Usiremhat on the throne as his puppet. It is unknown if Raherkhepeshef believed any of this, but it did not matter: with his father now under his control Ptahmose could act with impunity. Both Horseneb and Usiremhat were denounced, Ptahmose’ troops stormed the Per-Kheperu, where he purged the bureaucracy of elements he suspected of disloyalty. Horseneb was tried and executed, Usiremhat disappears from the record and Raherkhepeshef never left the palace grounds again. Ptahmose, now as sole regent, would rule Egypt.
Not, however, entirely uncriticised. Aware as he was that he needed to not totally alienate the bureaucracy, which after all allowed him to govern the country, Ptahmose was remarkably mild to those who second-guessed his decisions. Still alive, with a small but dedicated following, was the arch-conservative Sasobek: still denouncing military expenditure and foreign trade he urged Ptahmose to return to the policies of the distant past. More realistic, and in the long run more influential, was another senior scribe named Kanakht. His name meaning ‘Strong Bull’ it was aptly chosen: both physically and intellectually he was a man of great stature. While certainly not disrespectful of the past, and always admiring and respectful of the ethical teachings such as those of Ptahhotep, he denounced Sasobek’s reactionary leanings and obsession with ancient texts: ‘these are but the echoes of ancient sages, what relevance do they have today?’. Sasobek he described as a man who would ‘make the river flow to Nubia’ i.e. do something entirely unnatural; the challenges Egypt now faced were not those they faced a thousand years ago, and as such it would be necessary to adapt to new circumstances.
‘The Nile too, subtly, changes its banks’ he once remarked, noticing that while the river was still the same river it too shifted its ways somewhat, and in the same way Egypt, while still the same country, should also sometimes adept itself to changing times. He, like Itamun and Sasobek, also put a great emphasis on ma’at, on the centrality of the king and the duties and bonds which safeguarded Egyptian society; but he also stressed that these were reciprocal. As the subjects had a duty to their king, so the king also had a duty to his subjects: in this Kanakht emphasised restraint and benevolence. After the building frenzy of his father he urged Ptahmose to ‘alleviate the plight of the peasantry’ and urged him to rule with restraint: only then would the kingdom truly flourish. The ruler, according to Kanakht, should focus on his religious and ceremonial duties, and should not sully himself with drudgeries of day-to-day government, which should be left to the bureaucracy, a rather daring proposition considering how Ptahmose just purged the in his opinion overly mighty bureaucracy. Despite these opinions Ptahmose granted Kanakht a high position at court: he became chief treasurer, and while the prince himself was respectful of the man and admired his administrative talents he mostly ignored Kanakht’s musing and theories, but in the long run they would indeed gain acceptance.
Footnotes
… the inundations were excellent, harvests were abundant and the price of grain fell, the herds of cattle grew and prospered, bandits were supressed and merchants travelled without harassment, the gods were satisfied and both Egyptians and foreigners praised the King for his wise rule; such prosperity has not been known since the days of antiquity.
- Dynastic record of the reign of Raherkhepeshef
The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on the Throne of Horus in Memphis, was not accountable to any mortal man, or to the Egyptian people in general, but that does not mean that he was beyond all restraint. There was of course the divine to consider, the great gods who the king had to keep on his side by making offerings, building temples and performing rituals, and beyond that he was expected to maintain the rather nebulous concept known to the Egyptians as ma’at. This essentially meant the proper order of things: he had to ensure peace and prosperity, he would need to guard Egypt against its enemies and he would need to maintain the worship of the gods. Beyond that there was of course the support of the elites of the country, the weru and the upper ranks of the priesthoods, the bureaucracy and the court itself, all those the king would need to keep on his side or at least keep them complacent. Raherkhepeshef had managed this well, he was after all the man who had set up the newly-independent Egypt, and it was by his will that prestige and power was granted to those who aided him in the government of his realm.
But at the dawn of the 220’s Djeserkheperkara Setep-en-Amun Raherkhepeshef was a fading man: the precise cause of his declining health is unknown, but he rarely ventured beyond Memphis and its surroundings. It was a moment of great anxiety for the dynasty: despite the presence of a clear and preferred heir in Ptahmose there was a fear of what might happen were the pharaoh to pass away; were internal strife to flare up it could be used by foreign powers to impose their will on Egypt, as the Argeads had done during the final years of the Thirtieth Dynasty [1]. Nor was the fear of such an event entirely unwarranted, as both Egypt’s external and internal situation seemed to deteriorate during those years, and thus the presence of an aged but experienced ruler was preferred over that of a sickly monarch unable to venture beyond his capital.
The internal troubles already surfaced during the late 230’s, when Raherkhepeshef was still firmly in command. The reign of the king had in general been blessed with good inundations and bountiful harvests, but in August 232 the floodwaters did not reach very high, and those of 231 were so low that had the previous years not been bountiful would have meant famine in Egypt. The price of grain rose and with it the discontent of many. Banditry once again was a way out for the most desperate of society: those on the margins, hungry, poor and with nothing to lose. Despite the insistence of dynastic records on the absence of robbers, thieves and plunderers foreign records do mention them. From Carthage to Ephesos, where Egyptian grain fed the masses of the Aegean, to Babylon, chroniclers mention the events in Egypt. A succinct, and most telling, description was given in the temple records at the Esagila in Babylon, where besides the deeds of the Great King priests also noted events abroad: for the year 230 it simply read: ‘the land of Egypt is in turmoil’.
This brief period of malaise, nothing in comparison to the misery of the lasts years of Argead rule, did however briefly revive the spectre of anarchy in Egypt. As hunger spread in some parts of the country so did bands of malcontents who assaulted tax collectors, plundered temples and despoiled tombs. They were often swiftly dealt with: in those areas most plagued by unrest the weru were given permission to form local militias to safeguard the peace. Perhaps the most remarkable detail of this short period of unrest are the locations where these small uprisings took place: parts of the Delta just north of Memphis, the Fayum and the region of Abdju in Upper Egypt were the places most plagued by banditry and rebellion. Not coincidentally those were also the places were Raherkhepeshef’s major construction projects were taking place: discontent seemingly ran high among the conscripted labourers as their rations of grain and beer were slashed, a consequence of the bad harvests. That however was not their sole complaint: the conditions under which they laboured were harsh, they had to live in shacks, there was always a shortage of fresh water and the punishments doled out by overseers were often arbitrary and harsh. And thus while some of the conscripts chose to rebel many more decided to go on strike: and while in due time they went back to work, under threat of the whip or because of promises and bribes, the whole affair had shown that Raherkhepeshef’s monumental construction plans perhaps went too far and too fast for many of his subjects.
Luckily for Egypt the situation improved in 229: as the floodwaters rose the nilometer on the isle of Abu (Elephantine) predicted a bountiful harvest. But as Egypt recovered, its king declined: the once powerful pharaoh was increasingly old and infirm, which Timarchos of Rhakote, a Greek historian living in Egypt, ascribed to the unrest of the preceding year. According to him Raherkhepeshef was so shocked by his people’s willingness to rebel that it caused his illness. Whatever the case it was from the summer of 229 onwards that the king cloistered himself from the outside world and, increasingly, from affairs of state. There were two men who now stepped forward to govern the realm: one was, naturally, Ptahmose, eldest son of the king and heir to the throne. The other was the tjaty (vizier) Horseneb. Few men had risen as fast as he had during the reign of Raherkhepeshef, but he had shown himself a capable administrator and crucial ally of the king in the government of the country. It seems an arrangement was reached between the two of them: Horseneb would continue to oversee the bureaucracy and internal affairs while Ptahmose would perform the rituals that were required of a king of Upper and Lower Egypt and would direct the kingdom’s foreign affairs.
And for some time this arrangement seemed to work, and under Horseneb’s careful stewardship the country recovered quickly from the recent turmoil, as the system managed itself: in accordance with the waters of the Nile farmers sowed, harvested and laboured, they paid homage to the gods and celebrated their festivals, scribes and officials travelled the country, documenting wealth and collecting taxes while merchants peddled their goods wherever they could find a market. Ptahmose however faced a more difficult job, for while busy with his liturgical duties, he also had foreign affairs to consider, for Egypt’s position in the Eastern Mediterranean had worsened in the past decade. With the entire seaboard of the Eastern Mediterranean, from Halikarnassos to Gaza, with the exception of a strip of Syrian coast, under Demetrian rule after Perdiccas’ victory in the Second War of the Argead Succession [2] Egypt was once again vulnerable to a combined land-sea assault. It’s earlier attempts to ally itself with Macedonia ended up being for naught, for that country had since also fallen on hard times [3]. As Egypt had proven itself to be a crucial source of grain for the great cities of the Aegean it became a tempting target for the Demetrian Great King, as it would also promote his image as a true heir of Philip and Alexander, by restoring a lost satrapy to the empire. From his post at Rhakote this was perhaps more clear to Ptahmose than to Horseneb in Memphis, but the crown prince managed to pressure the vizier into granting additional funds for the military: at great expense shipbuilding material was bought from the Carthaginians, the navy expanded and new treaties signed with both Nabatean and Libyan tribes, agents were sent abroad as far away as Iberia to recruit mercenaries. Envoys were also sent to Eupatoria, hoping to convince Ptolemaios to ally against a common enemy. Ptahmose wanted to make sure that if war broke out, Egypt would be ready.
Statue of a Thirty-Second Dynasty official
As the years progressed however, with Raherkhepeshef remaining alive but ill, tensions arose between the two men who governed Egypt. The tjaty Horseneb, who rose from humble beginnings to being one of Egypt’s most powerful men, increasingly resented the crown prince, who had been granted everything in life. It seems to have been a clash of character and ambition: Horseneb was dutiful, stern and dedicated, while Ptahmose was a boisterous and proud man, and while certainly devoted to his duties the crown prince also was more of an autocrat than his father: criticism he accepted until a certain point, one which Horseneb had certainly reached halfway through 227. With his base of support mostly among the bureaucracy Horseneb increasingly went out of his way to block initiatives of Ptahmose; most notably his suggested renovation of Darius’ canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea, which also had been attempted but left unfinished by the Argeads. Ptahmose saw it as a great opportunity to increase trade, but Horseneb saw it as a waste of resources and refused to allocate conscript labour to the project: this was largely in line with the wishes of the bureaucracy at the Per-Kheperu, increasingly suspicious of foreign merchants the scribes and bureaucrats at Memphis supported their chief, in contrast to Ptahmose who viewed trade as an important aspect of the economy, perhaps related to his governship of Rhakote. Another confrontation followed later that year, when Netjeruhotep, brother of the pharaoh and high priest at Ipetsut [4] passed away. Large amounts of land in Upper Egypt, both agricultural estates on the banks of the Nile and several quarries and mines in the Eastern Desert, belonged to the estate of the priesthood of Amun at Ipetsut, and thus the position of high priest was one of great importance. Raherkhepeshef had installed his own brother in Waset in order to maintain those resources for the royal family, but now the priesthood of Amun decided to nominate one of their own to the highest position, which was confirmed by the oracle located at the temple. The man in question, a certain Nebamun, had previously been one of the senior scribes at Memphis and thus was an ally of Horseneb.
The court at the Per-Kheperu, and thus the pharaoh himself, seemingly accepted this, although it is not known how well Raherkhepeshef himself was at this time. From Rhakote however came howls of discontent: Ptahmose saw the appointment of someone outside the royal family as seditious, and thus he protested the move to his father and he also sent a team of ‘investigators’ to Waset to ascertain the legality of Nebamun’s ascent. Those investigators, many of whom were armed, soon uncovered a litany of liturgical improprieties: the oracle had not been consulted well, bribes had been handed out and Nebamun did not even properly cleanse himself before performing rituals. Promptly he was removed from office and instead Raherkhepeshef, a younger brother of Ptahmose, was now installed as the new high priest of Amun, with many of the ‘investigators’ remaining in Ipetsut to guarantee his safety. Ptahmose now also went one step further: he petitioned his father to remove the clearly treacherous Horseneb as tjaty, something which the king refused to do, although it is unclear in what condition he was at the time. Horseneb retaliated by resigning his position as Overseer of the King’s Works, and by granting that position to Usiremhat, another of Raherkhepeshef’s sons and Ptahmose’s younger brother. As one of the younger sons of the king Usiremhat had never been prominent, later sources report he led a life of debauched alcoholism at court and served as a priest of Ptah in Memphis, but Horseneb now undertook action to promote the young man as a worthy heir.
This then was the escalation which really triggered Ptahmose: Horseneb was clearly preparing the way to side-line him completely, something had to be done. Late in the summer of 226, just after the inundation, Raherkhepeshef made a rare trip outside the palace quarters. He visited the building-site at Iunu, where the recently conscripted labourers were continuing their work on the Great Temple of Ra. While on his way back to Memphis suddenly the royal entourage was assailed by troops, and while well-armed the pharaoh’s bodyguard were outnumbered and outmatched: their surprise must have been great when they saw that the commander of their assailants was none other than the crown prince Ptahmose himself. He revealed to his shocked and ailing father that a coup was underway: Horseneb was preparing to assassinate both king and prince and would then install Usiremhat on the throne as his puppet. It is unknown if Raherkhepeshef believed any of this, but it did not matter: with his father now under his control Ptahmose could act with impunity. Both Horseneb and Usiremhat were denounced, Ptahmose’ troops stormed the Per-Kheperu, where he purged the bureaucracy of elements he suspected of disloyalty. Horseneb was tried and executed, Usiremhat disappears from the record and Raherkhepeshef never left the palace grounds again. Ptahmose, now as sole regent, would rule Egypt.
Not, however, entirely uncriticised. Aware as he was that he needed to not totally alienate the bureaucracy, which after all allowed him to govern the country, Ptahmose was remarkably mild to those who second-guessed his decisions. Still alive, with a small but dedicated following, was the arch-conservative Sasobek: still denouncing military expenditure and foreign trade he urged Ptahmose to return to the policies of the distant past. More realistic, and in the long run more influential, was another senior scribe named Kanakht. His name meaning ‘Strong Bull’ it was aptly chosen: both physically and intellectually he was a man of great stature. While certainly not disrespectful of the past, and always admiring and respectful of the ethical teachings such as those of Ptahhotep, he denounced Sasobek’s reactionary leanings and obsession with ancient texts: ‘these are but the echoes of ancient sages, what relevance do they have today?’. Sasobek he described as a man who would ‘make the river flow to Nubia’ i.e. do something entirely unnatural; the challenges Egypt now faced were not those they faced a thousand years ago, and as such it would be necessary to adapt to new circumstances.
‘The Nile too, subtly, changes its banks’ he once remarked, noticing that while the river was still the same river it too shifted its ways somewhat, and in the same way Egypt, while still the same country, should also sometimes adept itself to changing times. He, like Itamun and Sasobek, also put a great emphasis on ma’at, on the centrality of the king and the duties and bonds which safeguarded Egyptian society; but he also stressed that these were reciprocal. As the subjects had a duty to their king, so the king also had a duty to his subjects: in this Kanakht emphasised restraint and benevolence. After the building frenzy of his father he urged Ptahmose to ‘alleviate the plight of the peasantry’ and urged him to rule with restraint: only then would the kingdom truly flourish. The ruler, according to Kanakht, should focus on his religious and ceremonial duties, and should not sully himself with drudgeries of day-to-day government, which should be left to the bureaucracy, a rather daring proposition considering how Ptahmose just purged the in his opinion overly mighty bureaucracy. Despite these opinions Ptahmose granted Kanakht a high position at court: he became chief treasurer, and while the prince himself was respectful of the man and admired his administrative talents he mostly ignored Kanakht’s musing and theories, but in the long run they would indeed gain acceptance.
Footnotes
- See update 29
- See update 67
- Which we’ll get to in (probably) the next update
- See update 52
It will be interesting to see how Ptahmose will handle things, but I'm thinking that will all depend on how he handles the Demetrian Kingdom as well as the Argeads of Persia as diplomacy and military action is more important than ever in keeping the peace within Egypt.
On the domestic front, it seems that Kanakht's ideas might influence Ptahmose in the future, though it will prove difficult considering the latter wants even greater power over the government as a true autocrat. Time will tell.
On the domestic front, it seems that Kanakht's ideas might influence Ptahmose in the future, though it will prove difficult considering the latter wants even greater power over the government as a true autocrat. Time will tell.
Ptahmose will certainly have a more active foreign policy than his father.
No, its the other way around: a powerful vizier got toppled because he attempted to interfere in the succession.
Allegedly. ;-)
Still avidly following this TL! I've been wanting to create one of my own where the 20th Dynasty remained strong instead of crumbling following the reign of Ramesses III but "Real life" has kept me from working on it.