THE GREAT EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION. 2) 
It is also true that the Ptolemies did not rule the country in a very paternal way. ‘They 
exploited the poor natives without mercy. While it must be admitted that the native rulers in 
ancient time never had made the burden of the Egyptian peasants too light, the Ptolemaic 
kings seem to have reached the greatest perfection in extorting the highest possible amount of 
taxation (Mommsen, 560). It is questionable, indeed, whether these burdens would have 
driven the patient crowds to serious insurrections. Of course, the religion of the natives never 
was touched, because religious intolerance nowhere existed in heathenism; only the mono- 
theistic religions introduced it. ‘The privileges of the temples and the priests were consider- 
ably limited under the Ptolemies; yet religious as the Egyptians were (in their own way, so 
different from what we now call piety), this would hardly have roused the masses of Egypt to 
insurrection. Nor have we evidence that the personal despotism of the kings and their vices 
ever had this effect. Such matters touched only the population of Alexandria. ‘The native 
element does not seem to have participated much in the numerous civil wars which later were 
fought for the succession to the throne; it left these to the Graco-Macedonian population, 
which had practical interest in those struggles, 7. e., in their spoils." 
In general, it must be admitted that the Egyptians were unwarlike to cowardice; 
just as Strabo (p. 819) characterized them as being patient, and used to being dominated by 
foreigners, long centuries before the Persians and Greeks ruled in the Nile land. Still, we must 
‘not exaggerate this docility beyond measure. ‘There were, at any rate, some elements among 
the Egyptians which were not quite as manageable as the ordinary peasants, namely, a privi- 
leged class, the warriors. 
We do not know very much as to this class of population. It is not necessary to discuss 
here the military institutions of the Egyptians from the earliest time. On the monuments 
speaking of Pharaoh’s troops we read mostly of mercenaries who also served as police whenever 
they were not needed abroad. ‘They begin with the negro troops of the sixth dynasty; sub- 
sequently all possible nations of Africa, Asia, and Europe contributed to these troops. The 
soldiers of Egyptian blood are not so conspicuous; they are less well treated and in earlier time 
often are employed in peace, not only as policemen but as common royal workingmen, even at 
the hardest kind of public work.’ 
We know especially little about the various classes of native soldiers in the Middle Empire. 
According to their name, we should assume “the followers” (#msw) to be specially privileged 
among them, possibly as doing personal service to the king (?); how they were distinguished 

1 A very interesting illustration is the quotation from Polybius given by Strabo, 17, 1 (791), characterizing the native population 
of Alexandria in the second century A. D. as gvdov dfdxal modirixév “‘a race sharp (-witted) and taking interest in political matters.” 
This characterization is, at first sight, very strange, because those words seem to fit only the Greek Alexandrines. Therefore, emenda- 
tions were proposed to alter the sense into the contrary, such as dzodurixdy (see C. Miiller’s edition of Strabo)—a very doubtful word, 
which does not harmonize in idea with the other designation ‘‘sharp, quick-witted.’’ After thinking for a while of the emendation 
ovdty modtiKov, Which is not much more satisfactory, I believe that the passage expressed, in its original setting, the surprise of Polybius 
that the Alexandrines of Egyptian race were somewhat different from the dull and apathetic mass of the other Egyptian natives. 
Originally, Polybius, in all probability, added some limiting words, at least that their number made them an element without great 
influence in politics. In the present form, the passage does not so well show that an exception confirming the general rule was meant, 
but I now feel sure of this sense. 
2 E. g.,on the famous representation of the transportation of the colossal] statue (Newberry, El-Bersheh, I, pl. 15), the second row of 
the people pulling the statue consists exclusively of soldiers, as their costume and the inscription ‘‘the young people (z'mw) of the soldiers 
(‘k;wtyw) of the hare nome” shows. When we find foreign mercenaries mentioned at such public works, they do not pull stones, as some 
Egyptologists have thought, but superintend the work as policemen only and overseers, as saidabove. Cp. L. D. III, 140¢, 2, 17, 18, ete. 
