THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

WHO WERE THE MAKERS ? 215
216 WHO WERE THE MAKERS ?
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which is its furthest point,
is inhabited by Libyans of many
distinct tribes, who possess the Avhole tract except certain
portions which belong to the Phoenicians and the Greeks'."
So says Herodotus, but it is more than probable that Egypt
herself contained within her limits many Libyans who formed a
very substantial part of her population. From its natural formation
it is probable that the Delta was not the original home of
a very ancient race. This makes it not unlikely that it was
peopled by a gradual infiltration of Libyans. The lonians held
that nothing was
"
really Egypt but the Delta, which extends
along shore from the watchtower of Perseus, as it is called, to
the Pelusiac saltpans, a distance of forty schoenes, and stretches
inland as far as the city of Cercasorus, where the ]S'ile divides
into two streams, which reach the sea at Pelusinm and Canopus
respectively. The rest of what is accounted Egypt belongs,
they say, either to Arabia or Libya^" Herodotus held that the
Egyptians were very ancient although the Delta was so young,
for "I think they (the Egyptians) have always existed ever
since the human race begfan : as the land went on increasinsf
part of the jiopulation came down into the new country, part
remained in their old settlements." The view of Herodotus
seems thoroughly sound. Arabia and Libya met in Egypt, and
modern research sIkjws that the curious race known to us as
the ancient Egyptians was certainly a blend, and as the people
were a mixture so their civilization was the outcome of the
kindly mixed elements derived from Asia on the one hand and
from Libya on the other.
It is highly probable that the Delta was in part peopled
In' Libyans. Certainly in that part of Egyj)! which bordered
on the Lake Mareotis tliei-e was a Libyan po])ulation, for
Herodotus tells that '" the people of the cities df ]\Iarea and
Apis, who live in the part nf Egypt that borders Libya, took a
dislike to the religious usagi's of the country concerning sacrificial
animals, and wished no longer to be restricted from eating
the tlesh of cdws. So as they believi'd themseKcs to be Libyans
and not Egy])tians, they sent to the shrine of Amnion in the
'
Herod. 11. .'i'J (Riiwliiison).
-
Id. u.
l'>.
Libyan desert to say that, having nothing in common with the
Egyptians, neither inhabiting the Delta, nor using the Egyptian
tongue, they claimed to be allowed to eat whatever they
pleased." Their request, however, was refused by the god, who
"
declared in reply that Egypt was the entire tract of country
which the Nile overspreads and irrigates,
and the Egyptians
were the people who lived below Elephantine, and drank the
waters of that river."
Under the xixth and XXth Dynasties the Lebu or Libyans
seem to have made constant incursions into Egypt. Such
invasions took place in the reign of Rameses III. and in that
of Menephtah the successor of Rameses I., II., in whose fifth
year (B.C.
1203 by Petrie's chronology, 1023 by Mr Torr's latest
possible) the Libyans, Tursha, Leka, Shardana, Sakalousha, and
Aquaiousha invaded Egypt. But the allies were beaten at
Prosopitis, and obliged to evacuate the Delta.
Earlier still in the reign of Ramesses II. the Libyan tribes
had entered Egypt, but had been repulsed.
Thus, as far as our
knowledge extends back into the annals of the new Empire,
the Libyans are seen periodically swooping down upon the rich
and tempting valley of the Nile, and we may venture to guess
that this had been their practice through unrecorded generations.
Such being the evidence derivable from Herodotus and the
Egyptian sources, we naturally turn to the Greek legend which
embodies an account of what seems to be more than one invasion
of Egypt from the side of Lib\-a. We have already adverted
to the story of Danaus in
connection with the early history of
Argolis.
We there briefly referred to the story of lo as given
by Aeschylus in the PrometJiens and ^upplices, how she was the
daughter of Inachus. was driven from Argolis by the persecution
of Hera, and after long wanderings reached Prometheus in his
adamantine bondage on the Caucasus, who declared that she
should "arrive at a far distant land and a black raci', who dwell
near the sources of the sun, where is the river of Ethiopia.
Along the banks of this stream proceed till you reach a cataract,
where fi-om the heights of th(,>
Pybline mountains the Nile hurls
its holy and wholesome sti'eam. By this you will be guided