Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 237 



unlikely that the great dynasties that reigned at Thebes and 

 pushed their conquests far and wide had come from the Libyan 

 side of the Nile. But as it is with the rise of the Thebaic kings 

 who expelled the Hyksoa that the horse and chariot first appear 

 in Egyptian history, and as it has been shown that the Egyptian 

 chariot was probably Libyan in origin, there is a very high 

 probability that the horses and chariots which enabled the 

 kings of the new Empire not only to expel the Hyksos but also 

 to extend their conquests into Asia, were the gift of Libya and 

 not of the Semitic Hyksos. 



Whether the Hyksos were Hebrews or some other Semitic 

 people, it matters little to our argument. If Manetho is right 

 in identifying the Hyksos with the Semites who settled in what 

 was afterwards Judaea, our argument that the Hyksos had not 

 bestowed on Egypt the gift of the horse is strengthened, for, 

 according to the Old Testament, the Israelites had no chariots 

 and horses when they left Egypt, and, as it has been pointed 

 out already (p. 226), they found great difficulty in their wars 

 against certain tribes in Canaan because these people possessed 

 chariots, and chariots too not merely of wood or fitted with 

 copper like those of Egypt, but strengthened with iron, a metal 

 which had not as yet come into use in Egypt. If, on the other 

 hand, the Hyksos were not Hebrews but another Semitic tribe 

 which after its expulsion from Egypt made its w^ay into Pales- 

 tine and Arabia, it is equally certain that they had no horses, 

 since none of the Arab tribes possessed horses till many 

 centuries later. Furthermore, if the Hyksos are the same as 

 the Israelites, our suggestion that the Egyptians had been 

 enabled to expel the Hyksos because the former had acquired 

 the new and powerful engine of war — the horse and the chariot — 

 likewise gains strength, for, as we have just seen, the Israelites 

 at the time of the exodus had neither horses nor chariots. 



It is not without significance that horses should have been 

 regarded in Homeric times (p. 219) as the special characteristic 

 of Egyptian Thebes in her palmy days. That the fame of her 

 horses and chariots had thus echoed across the Aegean is no 

 slight indication that the secret of her power lay in her horses 

 and chariots. The other kings who assisted the Thebaic 



