by servile labor directed by royal stewards, but the larger part he parceled out among the nobles.

These nobles in return were bound to pay a fixed amount of produce, and to furnish and lead a certain number of soldiers in war. On the death of a landholder, his holding in theory reverted to the king, but it was always conferred by him at once upon the heir; so that in practice it was a family property, subject to fixed rent in produce and in service. Within

his domain the noble was himself absolute; he executed justice, levied taxes, kept up his army. Like the king, he cultivated part of the land himself by his dependents, and part he let out in large holdings to aristocratic vassals, who stood to him as he to the king.

was

A considerable part of the land - perhaps one thirdattached to the temples, free of any obligation except the maintenance of the temple worship. It had become really the property of the organized and powerful priesthoods.

Actual labor upon all the land was performed by a peasant class not unlike that found in Egypt to-day. Some of them rented small farms; but a great majority were day laborers or held only insufficient lots on precarious terms. They were not bound to the soil, however, as the like class was later in Europe; they could move about at will; but, just as the great noble had a master and protector in Pharaoh, and the smaller noble in the larger one, so the peasant must remain attached to some patron, or he was liable to become the prey of any powerful enemy. Public opinion formed some check, however, upon arbitrary tyranny, and perhaps the poor were as safe as they have been in most countries in controversies with the rich and powerful. The oldest written "story" in the world (surviving in a papyrus of the twelfth dynasty) gives an interesting illustration: a peasant, robbed through a legal trick by the dependent of a royal officer, appeals to the judges and finally to the king; the king commands redress, enjoining his officer to do justice "like a praiseworthy man praised by the praiseworthy." Such appeals were probably no more difficult to make than on the continent of Europe all through the Middle Ages. In the towns there was a large middle class - merchants, shopkeepers, physicians, notaries, builders, and skilled artisans. The fact that laborers could win a strike (§ 35) proves that their condition was not one of universal misery. The slave class was apparently not very important.

There was no real caste in Egyptian society. As a matter of convenience, the son commonly followed his father's occupation, but there was no law (as in some Oriental countries) to prevent his passing into a different class; and sometimes the son of a poor herdsman did rise to wealth and power.1 Such progress was most easily open to the scribes. This learned profession was recruited from the brighter boys of the middle

1 For a remarkable example, see an Egyptian biography of such a self-made man, in Maspero's Dawn of Civilization, 290–296. The Hebrew Joseph's experience is hardly a case in point, but rather an instance of capricious favor such as is always possible in an Oriental despotism.

and lower classes. The majority found employment only in clerical work; but from the abler ones the nobles chose confidential secretaries and stewards, and some of these, who developed administrative ability, were promoted by the Pharaohs to the highest dignities in the land. Such men founded new families to reënforce the ranks of the nobility.

The soldiers are spoken of by the later Greek writers as a distinct class, and have sometimes been called a "caste." They were not an hereditary class, however, but were recruited from all available sources. They were kept under arms only when their services were needed. Each soldier held a small farm, of some eight acres, exempt from taxes and dues. Besides the

SHOEMAKERS.-Egyptian relief from the monuments.

enrolled and privileged soldiery, the peasantry were called out upon occasion, for war or for distant garrisons.

There was also a numerous and complicated bureaucracy connected with the government. Every despotism has to develop such a class, to act as eyes, hands, and feet; but in ancient Egypt the royal officials were particularly numerous and important. Until a late date the Egyptians had no money, and all the immense royal revenues, as well as all debts between private men, had to be collected "in kind." The treasurers must receive and care for and keep account of cattle, grain, wine, oil, stuffs, metals, jewels,-"all that the heavens give, all that the earth produces, all that the Nile brings from its

mysterious sources," as one king puts it in an inscription. This meant an army of royal officials; and, for a like reason, the great nobles needed a large class of trusted servants.

Thus we have for the superstructure of society a large ruling aristocracy of birth, another of merit (scribes and physicians), two specially privileged bodies (priests and soldiers), and the mass of privileged officials of all grades down to petty overseers. To most of these, life was a very pleasant thing, filled with active employment and varied with manifold recreations, as the monuments show. Below these, the middle class. shopkeepers, skilled artisans, and peasant proprietors

ranged

from comfort to misery. At the bottom was a large agricultural class heavily burdened with the weight of all these others. The condition of this class is always bad enough in Oriental despotisms, falling little short of practical slavery. Royal taxes, in particular, are exacted harshly, and the poor peasant is responsible for any deficit with all that he has, even with his person or his family. All this was true in ancient Egypt; still, from the Egyptian literature, the peasants seem to have been careless and gay, petting their cattle and singing at their work, and the large population indicates that they were prosperous. Probably they were as well off as the like class has been during the past century in Egypt or in Russia.

23. The Position of Woman was decidedly better than in the later Greek civilization, and better than in modern Oriental states. The wife was the friend and companion of the man. She was not secluded in a harem or confined strictly to a domestic existence, but appeared in company and at public ceremonies. She possessed equal rights at law; and, at intervals, great queens ruled upon the throne, while others evidently molded their sons and influenced their husbands. In no other country, until modern times, do pictures of happy domestic life play so large a part.

24. Industries and the Arts. - The skilled artisans included brickworkers, weavers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, upholsterers, glass-blowers, potters, shoemakers, tailors, armorers, etc. Many of these had acquired a marvelous dexterity, and were masters of processes that are not now known. The weavers in particular produced delicate and exquisite linen, almost as fine as silk, and the workers in glass and metal were famous for their skill. Jewels were imitated in glass so artfully that only an expert can detect the fraud by the appear