The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers. — John Shaqi
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.Prescott, Thomas H.
History
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.
Prescott, Thomas H.
Biography; World history
nome, though Isis and Osiris were common to all; and the priests of
each god constituted a society apart, more or less important,
according to the comparative celebrity of the temple. The property of
each temple included troops of dependents and slaves, who were stamped
with “holy marks,” and who must have been numerous, in order to
suffice for the service of the large buildings and their constant
visitors.
Next in importance to the sacerdotal caste were the military caste or
order, whose native name indicated that they stood on the left hand of
the king, while the priests occupied the right. They were classified
in Kalasires and Hermotybii, who occupied lands in eighteen particular
nomes or provinces, principally in Lower Egypt. The Kalasiries had
once amounted to 160,000 men, the Hermotybii to 250,000, when at the
maximum of their population; but that highest point had long been past
in the time of Herodotus. To each man of this soldier-caste was
assigned a portion of land, equal to about 6½ English acres, free from
any tax. The lands of the priests and the soldiers were regarded as
privileged property, and exempt from all burdens; while the remaining
soil was considered as the property of the king, who however, received
from it a fixed proportion――one-fifth of the total produce――leaving
the rest in the hands of the cultivators. The soldiers were
interdicted from every description of art and trade.’
The other castes are differently given in different authors; the most
probable account, however, is that which assigns them as three――the
caste of the husbandmen, that of the artificers, and that of the
herdsmen, which last caste included a variety of occupations held in
contempt, the lowest and most degraded of all being that of swineherd.
The separation between the husbandmen and the herdsmen seems to have
arisen from the circumstance that different parts of the country, not
suitable for agriculture, were entirely laid out in pasture. The
artificers, constituting the vast town population of Egypt, were
subdivided into a great variety of occupations, weavers, masons,
sculptors, etc., who were compelled to these professions by hereditary
obligation. It was by the labor of this vast town population, assisted
by that of herds of slaves, that those huge works were accomplished,
the remains of which attest the greatness of ancient Egypt. Part of
the artisan population were exclusively occupied in skilled labor; and
in a country where there was such a taste for works of masonry,
sculpture was necessarily one of the most largely-stocked of the
skilled occupations. ‘Perfect exactness of execution,’ it is said,
‘mastery of the hardest stone, and undeviating obedience to certain
rules of proportion, are general characteristics of Egyptian
sculpture. There are yet seen in their quarries obelisks not severed
from the rock, but having three of their sides already adorned with
hieroglyphics, so certain were they of cutting off the fourth side
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