that of the slaves ghosts had to be made. That was easily
done; they died when their master died and followed him to the tomb.
No doubt it seemed perfectly natural to all concerned, to the slaves as
much as to anybody else. But it shows the child's idea of the value of
life. An animate thing was hardly distinguished at this period from an
inanimate thing. The most ancient Egyptians buried slaves with their
kings as naturally as they buried jars of wine and bins of corn with
them. Both were buried with a definite object. The slaves had to die
before they were buried, but then so had the king himself. They all had
to die sometime or other. And the actual killing of them was no worse
than killing a dog, no worse even than "killing" golden buttons and
ivory boxes. For, when the buttons and boxes were buried with the king,
they were just as much dead as the slaves. Of the sanctity of _human_
life as distinct from other life, there was probably no idea at all. The
royal ghost needed ghostly servants, and they were provided as a matter
of course.

But as civilization progressed, the ideas of the Egyptians changed
on these points, and in the later ages of the ancient world they were
probably the most humane of the peoples, far more so than the Greeks,
in fact. The cultured Hellenes murdered their prisoners of war without
hesitation. Who has not been troubled in mind by the execution of Mkias
and Demosthenes after the surrender of the Athenian army at Syracuse?
When we compare this with Grant's refusal even to take Lee's sword
at Appomattox, we see how we have progressed in these matters; while
Gylippus and the Syracusans were as much children as the Ist Dynasty
Egyptians. But the Egyptians of Gylippus's time had probably advanced
much further than the Greeks in the direction of rational manhood. When
Amasis had his rival Apries in his power, he did not put him to death,
but kept him as his coadjutor on the throne. Apries fled from him,
allied himself with Greek pirates, and advanced against his generous
rival. After his defeat and murder at Momemphis, Amasis gave him a
splendid burial. When we compare this generosity to a beaten foe with
the savagery of the Assyrians, for instance, we see how far the later
Egyptians had progressed in the paths of humanity.

The ancient custom of killing slaves was first discontinued at the death
of the lesser chieftains, but we find a possible survival of it in the
case of a king, even as late