hat
it was an excessive detention indeed." Often, too, they used to
appropriate a portion of the tax for themselves. The new law, therefore,
was as follows:--

"If there be any place where the officials are
tax-collecting, and any one shall hear the report saying
that they are tax-collecting to take the produce for
themselves, and another shall come to report saying, 'My
man slave or my female slave has been taken away and
detained many days at work by the officials,' the
offender's nose shall be cut off, and he shall be sent to
Tharu."

One more law may here be quoted. The police used often to steal the
hides which the peasants had collected to hand over to the Government as
their tax. Horemheb, having satisfied himself that a tale of this kind
was not merely an excuse for not paying the tax, made this law:--

"As for any policeman concerning whom one shall hear it
said that he goes about stealing hides, beginning with
this day the law shall be executed against him, by
beating him a hundred blows, opening five wounds, and
taking from him by force the hides which he took."

To carry out these laws he appointed two chief judges of very high
standing, who are said to have been "perfect in speech, excellent in
good qualities, knowing how to judge the heart." Of these men the King
writes: "I have directed them to the way of life, I have led them to the
truth, I have taught them, saying, 'Do not receive the reward of
another. How, then, shall those like you judge others, while there is
one among you committing a crime against justice?'" Under these two
officials Horemheb appointed many judges, who went on circuit around the
country; and the King took the wise step of arranging, on the one hand,
that their pay should be so good that they would not be tempted to take
bribes, and, on the other hand, that the penalty for this crime should
be most severe.

So many were the King's reforms that one is inclined to forget that he
was primarily a soldier. He appears to have made some successful
expeditions against the Syrians, but the fighting was probably near his
own frontiers, for the empire lost by Akhnaton was not recovered for
many years, and Horemheb seems to have felt that Egypt needed to learn
to rule herself before she attempted to rule other nations. An
expedition against some tribes in the Sudan was successfully carried
through, and it is said that "h