e
river-bank by a mere strip of cultivated ground which could be easily
defended. A troop of armed men stationed on this neck of land could
command the navigable arm of the Nile, intercept trade with Nubia at
their pleasure, and completely bar the valley to any army attempting to
pass without having first obtained authority to do so. The advantages
of this site do not seem to have been appreciated during the Memphite
period, when the political life of Upper Egypt was but feeble.
Elephantine, El-Kab, and Koptos were at that period the principal cities
of the country. Elephantine particularly, owing to its trade with the
Soudan, and its constant communication with the peoples bordering the
Red Sea, was daily increasing in importance. Hermonthis, the Aunu of the
South, occupied much the same position, from a religious point of view,
as was held in the Delta by Heliopolis, the Aunu of the North, and its
god Montu, a form of the Solar Horus, disputed the supremacy with Minu,
of Koptos. Thebes long continued to be merely an insignificant village
of the Uisit nome and a dependency of Hermonthis. It was only towards
the end of the VIIIth dynasty that Thebes began to realize its power,
after the triumph of feudalism over the crown had culminated in the
downfall of the Memphite kings.

[Illustration: 306.jpg Denderah--Temple of Tentyra]

[Illustration: 306-text.jpg--Temple of Tentyra]

A family which, to judge from the fact that its members affected the
name of Monthotpu, originally came from Hermonthis, settled in Thebes
and made that town the capital of a small principality, which rapidly
enlarged its borders at the expense of the neighbouring nomes. All the
towns and cities of the plain, Madufc, Hfuifc, Zorit, Hermonthis,
and towards the south, Aphroditopolis Parva, at the gorge of the Two
Mountains (Gebelen) which formed the frontier of the fief of El-Kab,
Kusit towards the north, Denderah, and Hu, all fell into the hands of
the Theban princes and enormously increased their territory. After the
lapse of a very few years, their supremacy was accepted more or less
willingly by the adjacent principalities of El-Kab, Elephantine, Koptos,
Qasr-es-Sayad, Thinis, and Ekhmim. Antuf, the founder of the family,
claimed no other title than that of Lord of Thebes, and still submitted
to the suzerainty of the Heracleopolitan kings. His successors
considered themselves strong enough to cast off this allegiance, if
not to usurp all the i