Men of Bronze

by Scott Oden

  Crook and Flail

  The two most important insignias of the Pharaohs, said to have been given to them by the god Osiris (q.v.). The crook represented Pharaoh's role as guardian of the people, their shepherd and protector; the flail symbolized his role as provider (flails were used to winnow grain).

  Cyrus

  (Persian Kurush; Greek Kuros.) Persian conqueror who ruled from 559–530 BCE. Cyrus turned the semi-nomadic people of the southwestern Iranian plateau into one of the four greatest nations of his day (Egypt, Babylon, and Lydia being the other three). With methodical sureness, he excised his enemies until only Persia remained as a power in the East. Despite his expansionist policies, Cyrus was a benevolent ruler, praised in the Old Testament book of Isaiah and by later Greek philosophers for his wisdom and foresight. Cyrus died in 530 BCE while campaigning against the Massagetae, a Scythian tribe living around the Caspian Sea. His eldest son, Cambyses, succeeded him.

  Delphi

  A famous sanctuary of Apollo in central Greece. Situated on a terraced spur of Mount Parnassus, the site was thought to be the center of the world and served as a neutral meeting place for the surrounding Greek city-states. It derived greater renown, though, from its oracle, the Pythia. Deep inside the temple of Apollo, this priestess would sit on a bronze tripod above a chasm in the rock that spewed a "prophetic" vapor. An attendant would whisper the petitioner's written question to her, and she would go into a trance and provide the god's answer through cryptic exclamations, which a board of priests then rendered into hexameter verse. The examples of Delphic responses that have survived to modern times are so vague and nonsensical that the whole enterprise smacks of fraud. Still, the oracle attracted a throng of pilgrims and seekers of wisdom from all over the known world. See Croesus.

  Edom

  North Arabian kingdom bordering the Negev Desert (q.v.) and tributary to Kedar (q.v.). Edom's borders, at times, reached as far north as the shores of the Dead Sea. It encompassed parts of modern Jordan and Israel.

  Elath

  A trading city at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, between Sinai and Arabia. Elath was built on the site of biblical Ezion-geber, described in 1 Kings 9:26–28 as the place from whence King Solomon launched his fleets into the Red Sea.

  Elysium

  A place in the Greek afterlife where the gods allowed heroes to dwell. They envisioned it as a cool, well-watered garden full of pleasure and earthly delights, a sharp contrast to the grim moors of Tartarus (q.v.).

  Faience

  Called jehenet by the Egyptians, faience was a ceramic substance made from powdered quartz with a vitreous, alkaline glaze (similar in composition to ancient glass). It was widely used in the production of jewelry, vessels, and figurines. By far the most common colors of faience were blue, blue-green, and green, though other shades were possible.

  Fates

  (Greek Moirai, sing. Moira.) Three goddesses of Greek myth who preordained the course of human life and events. They were regarded as women engaged in the act of spinning: Clotho drew out the stuff of life from thread of infinite variety. She passed it, then, to Lachesis who measured it however she saw fit. Last, Atropos cut the thread, handling her shears as deftly for a slave as for a king. Not even Zeus could change the course of fate once the Moirai had spun it.

  First Servant of the God/Goddess

  The title of the highest Egyptian priest attached to a particular deity, often translated as High Priest. Though technically only Pharaoh could offer sacrifices and liturgies to the gods, the First Servants were `deputized' to act on Pharaoh's behalf. This spiritual commission carried with it great temporal power, and offered endless opportunities for self-enrichment and corruption.

  Furies

  In Greek religion, the Furies (Greek Erinyes) were spirits of vengeance and retribution, horrible apparitions who tormented those who had broken the bonds of society, but especially those guilty of murdering a family member. The devout sought to placate the Furies by offering sacrifices to them under the euphemistic title of the Eumenides (Greek "kindly ones").

  Gardens of Amenti

  The dwelling place of Osiris (q.v.), Lord of the Dead, in the far West. Once the deceased had proven himself by traversing the underworld to the Halls of Judgement (q.v.), and provided his heart could balance the Scales of Justice (q.v.), he was allowed entry into the Gardens of Amend where he would experience eternal life, happiness, and plenty — an Egyptian's ultimate spiritual aspiration.

  Gold of Valor

  An honor given by Pharaoh to soldiers who display courage and fortitude in battle.

  Halls of Judgement

  If the spirit of a deceased Egyptian survived the treacherous journey through the underworld, he or she would enter a great hall where Osiris (q.v.), flanked by Isis (q.v.) and Nephthys, sat in judgement. In a great flurry of spiritual activity, the deceased had to address a tribunal of forty-two minor gods by name and recite a list of crimes, declaring himself innocent of each. At the same time, Anubis weighed the deceased's heart against the feather of Ma'at (q.v.). If the heart balanced, or was lighter than the feather, Osiris allowed the spirit entry into the afterlife. If the deceased's heart proved heavier than the feather, though, it was thrown to Amemait, the Devourer, and utterly destroyed.

  Hathor

  An Egyptian goddess popular throughout the nation's long history. Hathor was the protectress of women and the patron of love and joy, song and dance. When threatened, though, Hathor could be as ferocious as a lioness protecting her young. Artists depicted the goddess as a woman with cows' ears or as a cow.

  Hem-ne jer

  (Egyptian "god's servant".) Egyptian priests of the lower rank. The hem-ne jer were allowed access to the inner sanctuary as part of their allotted duties.

  Hieratic

  (Greek hieratikos, "priestly".) A cursive form of hieroglyphic Egyptian used in day-to-day writing. It was regularly employed for business documents, legal texts, letters, and records. Hieratic was written on papyrus with a reed brush.

  Hieroglyphs

  (Greek hieros giuphe, "sacred carvings".) The pictorial writing of the ancient Egyptians that was as much an artistic medium as it was a way of imparting knowledge. Though developed sometime before 3100 BCE, the hieroglyphic symbols and signs remained comparatively unchanged for three and a half millennia.

  Ancient Egyptian was based on a consonantal alphabet of twentyfour characters (vowels were never written), bearing more than a passing similarity to such Semitic language alphabets as Arabic. Hieroglyphic writing combined signs that represented an object or concept (called an ideogram) with signs that represented alphabetic sounds (called a phonogram); single signs could combine as many as two, three or four consonants, and there were signs called determinatives that hinted at the meaning of a word. Still, despite their apparent chaos, hieroglyphs were concise and strictly regulated as to grammar and syntax. They could be written in rows and read from either direction or in columns and read from top to bottom. The symbols representing human or animal figures normally faced toward the beginning of an inscription. Hieroglyphs, as their name infers, were reserved for religious texts, monumental inscriptions, or as part of the decorative scheme for a tomb. See hieratic.

  Hoplites

  The heavy infantrymen of the Greek world, hoplites began their history as part-time citizen-soldiers; men up to middle age who could afford the cost of arms and armor were required to serve as a condition of citizenship in many city-states. They trained in early spring for the summer campaign season, then disbanded and returned home for the harvest and winter.

  Hoplites derived their name from hopla, a Greek word for their heavy offensive and defensive equipment: a circular oak-andbronze shield — called an aspis (pl. aspides) — weighing close to twenty pounds, a bronze breastplate, greaves, Corinthian helmet (q.v.), a stout eight-foot spear, and an iron sword. All told, the hopla weighed in at sixty to seventy pounds. Nothing quite like it existed anywhere else in the Mediterranean, and forei
gn rulers were quick to capitalize on that fact by hiring Greek mercenaries to fight their wars. The hoplites serving in Egypt, the Men of Bronze, were drawn mainly from the Aegean islands and the coast of Asia Minor (Ionia and Caria). See panoplia and phalanx.

  Horus

  The falcon-headed son of Isis and Osiris who personified the might and majesty of Pharaoh. Horns battled Seth (q.v.) for the right to rule the world of the living, and their ceaseless enmity epitomized the struggle between light and dark, good and evil. Despite losing an eye in combat, Horns proved ultimately victorious and became Horu-Sema-Tawyto the Egyptians — Horns, Uniter of the Two Lands. See uadjet.

  House of Life

  (Egyptian Per-Ankh.) An institution in Egyptian society that is poorly understood by modern scholars. On the surface, the House of Life served as a scriptorium, a training ground for scribes, and a depository for religious and secular texts. But it was also a place where leading priests and scholars conducted research — astronomical, medical, and magical — and a focal point for higher learning. Little is known of its organization or bureaucracy; even its associations with the temples is vague, but it is possible that one existed in every town of any size. In Men of Bronze, I have assigned an additional task to the House of Life by making it the administrative nerve center of Pharaoh's army, a rally point for the scribes, physicians, and priests of the battle train.

  Hypostyle hall

  Greek term for a room containing numerous pillars. In Egyptian architecture, it is applied to the forest of stone columns between the open courts and the inner sanctum of a temple. In most eras, the columns were carved and painted to resemble lotus or papyrus stalks, symbolizing the vegetation that grew around the primordial Mound of Creation, which was itself represented by the inner sanctuary.

  Ineb-hedj

  "The White Walls." Egyptian name for the fortress at Memphis.

  Inundation

  The annual flooding of the Nile caused by rains in the highlands of tropical Africa. Upriver, at Aswan, the flood began in late June; it reached Memphis by the end of September, crested, and receded by the following April. The floods brought rich black silt to the fields, renewing their ability to produce crops. The Inundation varied from year to year; too low a flood meant famine, too high brought devastation and loss of life to the villages along the riverbank. A whole corps of priests were devoted to keeping meticulous watch on water levels, offering sacrifices to Hapi, patron god of the Nile, and praying for a perfect Inundation.

  Isis

  (Egyptian Eset) The most beloved goddess of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, whose cult survived into Greek and Roman times. Isis was the archetypical wife and mother, a healer and nurturer who also possessed formidable powers of magic, which she used in the service of mankind. She was depicted in temple reliefs as a woman wearing either a throne on her head (the spelling of her name in Egyptian), or a sun disk set between the horns of a cow.

  Iunu

  (Egyptian "Pillar".) An Egyptian city northeast of Memphis, the cult center for the worship of Ra (q.v.). The Greeks knew it as Heliopolis. It is located in a suburb of modern Cairo.

  Ka

  An individual's spirit or life force that left the body at the moment of death and made the journey through the underworld to the Halls of Judgement (q.v.), seeking immortality. Once the ka achieved entry into the Gardens of Amenti (q.v.), it still maintained a vital link to its preserved body. It could return to the tomb and partake of the offerings of family and loved ones, the gifts of food and drink, the adornments and pleasure items; or, the ka could activate the ushabti (q.v.) figures to comply with whatever demands the gods might make on the deceased.

  Kedar

  The ancient name of the north Arabian desert, as far south as Yathrib (modern Medina). The rulers of Kedar grew wealthy off the incense trade with south Arabia. At the time of Men of Bronze, Kedar was nominally under Egyptian suzerainty, though in reality it operated as an independent principality. The story of their pact with Persia is given in Herodotus, 111 7–9.

  Khnum

  (Egyptian "Moulder".) The ram-headed god of the island of Yeb (q.v.), near Egypt's border with Nubia. It was Khnum, according to myth, who shaped humanity from clay on his potter's wheel. Artists depicted Khnum as a ram-headed man with corkscrew horns, wearing plumes, the solar disk and uraeus (q.v.).

  Krypteia

  A Spartan institution, the krypteia functioned as a kind of secret police, ritualistically terrorizing the vast number of slaves ("helots") that comprised the Spartan state. Their murders were condoned each year in a formal declaration of war against the helots.

  Lake Serbonis

  A lagoon east of the Nile delta whose waters are foul and salty. According to Herodotus, Lake Serbonis was home to the serpent-headed giant, Typhon.

  Ma'at

  An Egyptian goddess who personified truth, justice, and cosmic order. In the mortuary rituals, Anubis weighed the spirit of the deceased against a feather belonging to Ma'at. Tomb and temple scenes depicted her as a winged woman wearing an ostrichfeather headdress.

  Ma at

  The ethical and moral cornerstone of Egyptian society. The philosophy of ma'at evolved from the worship of the goddess of the same name, and it embodied the idea that for an Egyptian to become part of the cosmic order after death, he or she had to take responsibility for acting with reasonable behavior, according to the laws of the cosmos, while alive. That meant quietude, piety, cooperation, and duty to the gods, to Pharaoh, and to their fellow man. Ma'at gave Egyptians a sense of security in an often chaotic world.

  Machimoi

  The Greek name for the native Egyptian warrior class. Only about ten thousand, known as the Veterans, formed the standing army; the rest were militia, men who could be called upon to meet the needs of a specific campaign. Even when not under arms, the machimoi were a potent political force, capable of disrupting royal authority. The mercenaries, specifically the Greek Men of Bronze, often acted on Pharaoh's behalf to counter the power of the machimoi.

  Mansion of the Spirit of Ptah

  (Egyptian Hiku-Ptah.) The sprawling temple of Ptah (q.v.), chief deity of Memphis, that the Greeks likened to their own Hephaestus. Pharaohs of all dynasties, even during times of foreign rule, added their mark to the temple by refurbishing or adding anew to an already dizzying array of monumental pylons, obelisks, minor temples, chapels, and statues. Unfortunately, very little remains of this great structure, or of the city around it. What the Nile did not erode away, the builders of Cairo's palaces and mosques scavenged. By all accounts, though, the Mansion of the Spirit of Ptah rivaled in size the temple of Amon at Thebes (q.v.).

  Men of Bronze

  A phrase used by the Egyptians to denote their mercenary soldiers, particularly the Greek heavy infantry. It originated during the reign of Wahibre Psammetichus (Greek: Psammis), first Pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664–525 BCE). According to Herodotus, Wahibre Psammetichus sent to the oracle at Buto for advice on how best to unite Egypt under his aegis and was told in reply that aid would come from the sea, whence men of bronze would appear. He considered this unlikely, but not long after a contingent of raiders from Ionia and Caria landed on Egypt's coast, victims of bad weather. In their bronze armor, Wahibre Psammetichus saw the oracle fulfilled. He befriended the Greeks and took them into his service, where they proved invaluable allies in the reunification of Egypt.

  Mt. Casius

  A promontory between Lake Serbonis (q.v.) and the Mediterranean; more of a hill than a mountain.

  Nabonidus

  (Chaldean Nabu-na'id.) The last king of Babylon, who ruled from 555–538 BCE. Nabonidus was a general in the army of the late king Nebuchadnezzar, a respected statesman and antiquarian, who assumed the throne after a year of rebellion and misrule. His own reign was anything but smooth. He forsook Babylon and, for reasons unknown, spent ten years building a new capital at the oasis of Taima, in northwest Arabia. The Dead Sea Scrolls describe Nabonidus' sojourn in the desert
as an illness caused by divine wrath, but whatever the cause, its effect was disastrous. Persia's power grew unchecked, Lydia fell, and Cyrus (q.v.) set his sights on Babylon, herself. Nabonidus, now likely well into his seventh decade, returned to Babylon in 538 BCE, in time to watch it fall uncontested into Persian hands. Cyrus' followers captured and killed the aging Chaldean king.

  Negev Desert

  An inhospitable region of hills, plateaus and desert stretching from the Shara Mountains (q.v.) in the west to Sinai (q.v.) and the borders of Egypt. It was considered inaccessible by all save the nomadic Bedouin, whose shaykhs (q.v.) gained a sense of power and prestige from control of the caravan routes linking the Mediterranean with the incense fields of south Arabia. To pass, merchants had to pay homage to a collection of self-styled kings who operated as little more than robber-barons. By the 6th century BCE, however, much of the Negev lay under the thumb of the Arabian kings of Kedar (q.v.).

  Neith

  (Egyptian Nit) The patron goddess of Sais, in the Nile Delta, and protectress of the kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664525 BCE). Neith's cult dated to the predynastic era, and over the centuries her roles have changed to fit the times — from mother of Sobek and a goddess of nurturing to the patroness of weavers to a goddess of the hunt and of warfare. In all her guises, though, Neith's dominance in the Saite region remained unquestioned.

  Nekhebet

  The vulture-goddess, patroness and guardian of Upper Egypt and protector of the king. The image of a vulture's head was often worn with the uraeus (q.v.), signifying Pharaoh's lordship over Upper and Lower Egypt.