10 THE GREAT EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION. 
from the soldiers called mnftyw is not clear, because the latter name seems to begin soon to be 
used vaguely.1. We find then “the hereditary troop of the soldiers which is (always) ready”’ 
(m tpt—‘)* first mentioned under one of the later kings of the twelfth dynasty (Senwosret ITI, 
cp. Naville Bubastis, pl. 34a, 8). Their name means: the people who inherit with certain 
privileges the duty to serve in war time, probably also in peace on certain occasions. ‘Thus they 
correspond, e. g., to the Timariots in the Turkish state. The nstitution seems to have been 
new then, because the inscription explains it still. In the New Empire we find “the hereditary 
soldiery’’ mentioned very often. From Pap. Sallier I, 7, 3, we learn that the “stable-owner”’ 
hry—h(w), represented the higher class of the “hereditary troops.’’ It is said there: “If his 
horse(s) leave him (so that he is) afoot, he is taken to the hereditary class,” 7. e., here the infan- 
try. It is not expressly stated that the scenes of conscription, like Mzss. Frang. V, 598, “the 
mustering of young recruits,’’ where the scribe “was teaching everybody his duties of the 
whole army,”’ refer to the “hereditary soldiers,’’ but this is most probable.* In these scenes 
they do not appear with arms; the representations in Medinet Habi (Rosellini, Mon. Stor. 125 
=Champollion, Mon. 218) show that the royal armory handed those out to the soldiers in 
time of war. From the Karnak inscription of Haremheb, line 25 (see my Egyptological 
Researches I, pl. 93), we learn that the soldiers of all Egypt were divided into two big “classes” 
(s}; not to be confounded with the small “classes,’’ which correspond with our regiments), so 
that the division into the so-called Kalasirians and H(?)ermotybians (Herodotus, II, 164) seems 
to go back to the eighteenth dynasty at least. Herodotus and other Greeks describe the 
privileges of the soldiers as consisting in freedom from taxation and a uniform fief of arable 
land.® According to the inscriptions, there was no caste system connected with this. It 
seems that the eldest son inherited the father’s occupation and, evidently, the fief of land; the 
other children were free to choose their vocation and usually sought it outside of the military 
service.© When there was no suitable heir to the military position, a successor was nominated 
by the government. Probably it was not difficult to find an applicant from the ranks of the 
peasant class for the use of a fief of very desirable ground. According to the Greek writers, 
nevertheless, in their time, the soldiers seem to have felt themselves to be a separate class of 

1 FE. g., a prince of Elephantine (Rec. Trav. X, 188, etc.) furnished mnftyw to the king ‘‘to overthrow his enemies.”’ ‘This makes us 
think of Nubian troops among these and makes it doubtful whether that expression marks a fixed military class even in the Middle 
Empire. In the same period we find the designation ‘;wty “the warrior’’ (corresponding closely to the Greek designation udxtuos) 
as profession, e. g., Garstang, Burial Customs, p. 191, etc.; see above on Newberry, El-Bersheh I, 15. 
? Literally “from that which is on the hand.’’ This expression seems to be explained as in the parallel English idiom, 7. e., of 
readiness at the calling of the king, less probably of the fact that those soldiers were bound to their place. 
3 See de Morgan, Catalogue I, 120, “the stable-owners and officer-men (sw-snn/) of the hereditary class” in parallelism. Leyden, 
Pap. D. 132 (Moller, Hieratische Lesestiicke III, 14), 1. 15: ‘‘the officers (suny) of the soldiers of Pharaoh and his cavalry.” So sunny 
seems to be limited to the charioteers. When we find so often the designation of the hereditary soldiers as royal, as, e. g., Pap. 
Bologna, I, 14, “the hereditary force (#}—y“‘yt) of Pharaoh”’, this is no superfluous addition. E.g., L. D. III, 153, 13 “‘the officers of 
the hereditary force (yw‘t) [from] the lands of Pharaoh’’; similarly line 17 “from the land of Pharaoh.’”’ The contrastis furnished by 
Pap. Anastasi IV, 8 (Moller III, 5) “‘mustering soldiers (and) cavalry of the temples (their) serfs (and ?) youths at the command of 
the officers of His Majesty.’ J. e., the serfs of the temples sometimes were exempted from military service, sometimes a certain 
number of them were demanded for the Army, and even horses for the war chariots had to be furnished by the priests. Military 
service depended also in this case on land tenure. 
4 The pictures (ibid. 228, 288) ought not to have been explained as recruiting scenes; they represent the feeding at festivals of 
soldiers commanded to serve near the king. Here they are called ninf(y)tyw. See note 1, on the vagueness of this expression. 
5 In dynasty 18 special gifts of fields are given to officers, as a reward for preeminent bravery, L. D. III, 12d, 21. Consequently, 
the fiefs can not always have been of uniform size at that time. 
® Diodorus I, 73, seems to assume that all children of soldiers entered on the father’s profession, a proof that he had little 
knowledge of the ancient conditions. 
