had been a warning to the Egyptian people. Their five hundred years of
foreign slavery had been a terrible experience. Such a thing must never
happen again. The frontier of the fatherland must be made so strong that
no one dare to attack the holy soil.

A new Theban king, called Tethmosis, invaded Asia and never stopped
until he reached the plains of Mesopotamia. He watered his oxen in the
river Euphrates, and Babylon and Nineveh trembled at the mention of his
name. Wherever he went, he built strong fortresses, which were connected
by excellent roads. Tethmosis, having built a barrier against future
invasions, went home and died. But his daughter, Hatshepsut, continued
his good work. She rebuilt the temples which the Hyksos had destroyed
and she founded a strong state in which soldiers and merchants worked
together for a common purpose and which was called the New Empire, and
lasted from 1600 to 1300 B.C.

Military nations, however, never last very long. The larger the empire,
the more men are needed for its defense and the more men there are in
the army, the fewer can stay at home to work the farms and attend to the
demands of trade. Within a few years, the Egyptian state had become
top-heavy and the army, which was meant to be a bulwark against foreign
invasion, dragged the country into ruin from sheer lack of both men
and money.

Without interruption, wild people from Asia were attacking those strong
walls behind which Egypt was hoarding the riches of the entire
civilized world.

At first the Egyptian garrisons could hold their own.