Inside the great temple at Abu Simbel in Egypt,
build by the Pharaoh Ramses 2 in honor of the
sun gods. It is so constructed that the rays of the
rising sun fall on the figures in the inner sanctuary
on one day in April each year.
The peasants lived more simply. Except in the Nile delta they faced little
danger of attack from foreign raiders for the first 2000 years of Egypt's
existence, for unlike the peasants of the Asian Mediterranean mainland, most of
them lived in isolation from other peoples. They seldom went short of food and
their diet was varied. But they had their grievances, recorded by an unknown
scribe who championed their cause. Many of the complaints he voiced - including
the lament over payment of taxes - would be familiar to present day farmers.
But in addition the peasant faced an service of Pharaoh: to do forced labour,
till his land buid and maintain canals, and construct the great palaces, tombs
and temples that survive to this day.
Compared with the citizens of Athens, the Egyptians had hardly any freedom
at all. Many were actually slaves – either through the misfortunes of war or
because they had fallen into debt. They lived to serve a divine Pharaoh whose
officials at every turn laid down how life should be lived. But if they had no
freedom, they at least had relative security and, in theory, equality before
the law. Egyptian law was in fact highly developed and extra ordinarily
efficient.
Oratory counted for little, and lawyers had to fight their clients’ cases
before judges in written, not spoken, words.
Despite foreign invasions and the cultural upheavals across the
Mediterranean, Egypt’s from of government lasted longer than any other system
has ever endured. But the last 1500 years of Egyptian civilization was only a
shadow of the former glory of the kingdom. By 1000 BC waves of invaders began
to assail the land. Libyans came from the north – west, Ethiopians from the south,
and Assyrians from the north – east. In 525 BC a Persian army captured Egypt;
in 332 BC Alexander of Macedonia took the country; and in 30 BC it became
merely a Romance Province. long before Moslem armies took Egypt for Islam in
the AD 640s, the old civilization had disappeared. Even the perfectly preserved
hieroglyphics on the temple walls had become no more than magic signs for the
superstitious inhabitants of a decadent country.
By and larger, Egypt’s bureaucratic despotism served the needs of the
country well. But when it passed away practically nothing was inherited by
later civilizations.