etween Egypt and over-sea Crete, and relations
with Mesopotamia may possibly have been established. At any rate, when
the war of liberation, which was directed by the princes of Thebes, was
finally brought to a successful conclusion and the Arabs were expelled,
we find the Egyptians a much changed nation. They had adopted for war
the use of horse and chariot, which they learnt from their Semitic
conquerors, whose victory was in all probability largely gained by their
use, and, generally speaking, they had become much more like the Western
Asiatic nations. Egypt was no longer isolated, for she had been forcibly
brought into contact with the foreign world, and had learned much.
She was no longer self-contained within her own borders. If the Semites
could conquer her, so could she conquer the Semites. Armed with horse
and chariot, the Egyptians went forth to battle, and their revenge was
complete. All Palestine and Syria were Egyptian domains for five hundred
years after the conquest by Thothmes I and III, and Ashur and Babel sent
tribute to the Pharaoh of Egypt.

The reaction came, and Egypt was thrown prostrate beneath the feet of
Assyria; but her claim to dominion over the Western Asiatics was never
abandoned, and was revived in all its pomp by Ptolemy Euergetes, who
brought back in triumph to Egypt the images of the gods which had been
removed by Assyrians and Babylonians centuries before. This claim was
never allowed by the Asiatics, it is true, and their kings wrote to the
proudest Pharaoh as to an absolute equal. Even the King of Cyprus calls
the King of Egypt his brother. But Palestine was admitted to be
an Egyptian possession, and the Phoenicians were always energetic
supporters of the Egyptian regime against the lawless Bedawin tribes,
who were constantly intriguing with the Kheta or Hittite power to the
north against Egypt.

The existence of this extra-Egyptian imperial possession meant that the
eyes of the Egyptians were now permanently turned in the direction of
Western Asia, with which they were henceforth in constant and intimate
communication. The first Theban period and the Hyksos invasion,
therefore, mark a turning-point in Egyptian history, at which we may
fitly leave it for a time in order to turn our attention to those
peoples of Western Asia with whom the Egyptians had now come into
permanent contact.

Just as new discoveries have been made in Egypt, which have modified our
previous conception of h