NOTICES 7A KJfODrs. T
143
the Greeks; On (Heliopolis) and Man-nofri (Memphis) were Menephthah assembled his army in seriously threatened. front of these two towns, in order to cover them he drew from Asia a number of mercenaries, to supply the lack of Egyptian soldiers of sufficient experience ; at the same time he fortified the banks of the middle branch of the Nile, to prevent the enemy from crossing it, and to place in safety, at any rate, the eastern half of the Delta. Sending forward in advance, first of all, his chariot-force and his light-armed auxiliaries, the Pharaoh promised to join the battle array with the bulk of his troops at the end offourteen days. But he was not personally fond of actual 'fight, and disliked exposing himself to the chance of defeat. An apparition of the god Phthah, which he saw in a dream, warned him that his lofty rank required him not to cross the river. He thereforesent his army to the combat under the command of ;
some of his father's generals, who were still living." Two features of Menephthah's character, as represented in Scriphis want of personal courage and ture, are here illustrated his habit of departing from his promises with or without a The apparition of the god Phthah in a dream is pretext. clearly a convenient fiction, by means of which he might at once conceal his cowardice and excuse the forfeiture of his :
word.
The Egyptian monuments thus confirm three leading his superstitiousfeatures in the character of Menephthah, ness, his want of courage, and his weak, shifty, false temper. They do not, howevor, furnish much indication of his cruelty. This is, perhaps, sufficiently accounted fur by their scantiof whom it has been said * ness. is a Menephthah
king
that he "belongs to the number of those monarchs whose memory has been with difficulty preserved by a few monuments of inferior value, and a few inscriptions of but little have, in fact, but one inscription of any importance." It gives mainly considerable length belonging to his reign. f an account of the Libyan war, in which he was not persontone of pride and arrogance common to ally engaged. the autobiographical memoirs of Egyptian kings pervades the it, but it contains few notices of any severities for which
We A
" Histoire d'Egypte," p. 175. Brugsch. " Records of the This inscription will be found translated in " Recherches Past," vol. iv.,pp. 39-48. and in M. Chabas' pour servir 1'histoire de 1'Egypte," pp. 84-94. * t