“The spirit of the nation was one of indifference – the dull obedience of serfs who possessed no initiative, no animation, no patriotism, whose thoughts were wholly concentrated on the problem of daily bread and economic interests… officials became submerged in a mire of bureaucracy and bribery… Serfdom lay heavy upon the people, but protests were seldom heard. Dissatisfaction assumed a form typical among serfs. When they found that conditions were no longer tolerable, groups of men, agriculturists, workmen, sailors or officials, said ‘We can bear no more’, and fled to the temples to claim the protection of the gods, or disappeared in the swamps of the Delta… these strikes were of common occurrence. They were a constant terror to the officials, since force was useless in dealing with a psychology born of dull despair. The government was rich in money, but the country was poor in spirit, and hardly knew happiness. True, the country occasionally revolted, under the banners of the old gods and temples or under the influence of national feeling. But these insurrections invariably ended in massacres, and only when the energetic elements in them had been destroyed was an amnesty granted to the survivors.”
[Rostovtzeff: Foundations of social and economic life in Egypt; JEA, vi (1920), p170; in Murray, M.A.: The splendour that was Egypt (1963)]
