ly made hereditary in the family.
The kings preserved, it is true, the privilege of confirming the new
appointment, and the nominee was not considered properly qualified until
he had received his investiture from the sovereign.*

* This is proved by the Maunier stele, now in the Louvre; it
is there related how the high priest Manakh-pirri received
his investiture from the Tanite king.

Practically the Pharaohs lost the power of choosing one among the sons
of the deceased pontiff; they were forced to enthrone the eldest of his
survivors, and legalise his accession by their approbation, even when
they would have preferred another. It was thus that a dynasty of vassal
High Priests came to be established at Thebes side by side with the
royal dynasty of the Pharaohs.

The new priestly dynasty was not long in making its power felt in
Thebes. Nakhtu-ramses and Amenothes lived to a great age--from the reign
of Ramses III. to that of Ramses X., at the least; they witnessed the
accession of nine successive Pharaohs, and the unusual length of their
pontificates no doubt increased the already extraordinary prestige which
they enjoyed throughout the length and breadth of Egypt. It seemed as if
the god delighted to prolong the lives of his representatives beyond the
ordinary limits, while shortening those of the temporal sovereigns. When
the reigns of the Pharaohs began once more to reach their normal length,
the authority of Amenothes had become so firmly established that no
human power could withstand it, and the later Ramessides were merely a
set of puppet kings who were ruled by him and his successors. Not only
was there a cessation of foreign expeditions, but the Delta, Memphis,
and Ethiopia were alike neglected, and the only activity displayed
by these Pharaohs, as far as we can gather from their monuments, was
confined to the service of Amon and Khonsu at Thebes. The lack of energy
and independence in these sovereigns may not, however, be altogether
attributable to their feebleness of character; it is possible that they
would gladly have entered on a career of conquest had they possessed
the means. It is always a perilous matter to allow the resources of
a country to fall into the hands of a priesthood, and to place its
military forces at the same time in the hands of the chief religious
authority. The warrior Pharaohs had always had at their disposal the
spoils obtained from foreign nations to make up the def