ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the
fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria
was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been
made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian
princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when
sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but
the experiment seems to have produced no better ultimate effect than
similar experiments tried subsequently by imperial nations from the
Romans to ourselves.

[Plate 2: ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. TEMP. AMENHETEP III]

Beyond this conception of imperial organization the Egyptians never
advanced. Neither effective military occupation nor effective
administration of Syria by an Egyptian military or civil staff was so
much as thought of. Traces of the cultural influence of Egypt on the
Syrian civilization of the time (so far as excavation has revealed its
remains) are few and far between; and we must conclude that the number
of genuine Egyptians who resided in, or even passed through, the Asiatic
province was very small. Unadventurous by nature, and disinclined to
embark on foreign trade, the Nilots were content to leave Syria in
vicarious hands, so they derived some profit from it. It needed,
therefore, only the appearance of some vigorous and numerous tribe in
the province itself, or of some covetous power on its borders, to end
such an empire. Both had appeared before Amenhetep's death--the Amorites
in mid Syria, and a newly consolidated Hatti power on the confines of
the north. The inevitable crisis was met with no new measures by his
son, the famous Akhenaten, and before the middle of the fourteenth
century the foreign empire of Egypt had crumbled to nothing but a sphere
of influence in southernmost Palestine, having lasted, for better or