Originally slaves from the regions of the Caucasus, captured in war or bought in the market-place, who became the bodyguard of the Sultan in Egypt, and by-and-by his master to the extent of ruling the country and supplying a long line of Sultans of their own election from themselves, many of them enlightened rulers, governing the country well, but their supremacy was crushed by the Sultan of Turkey in 1517; after this, however, they retained much of their power, and they offered a brilliant resistance to Bonaparte at the battle of the Pyramids in 1798, who defeated them; but recovering their power after his withdrawal and proving troublesome, they were by two treacherous massacres annihilated in 1811 by Mehemet Ali, who became Viceroy of Egypt under the Porte.