voted soldiers of the prince against whom they had formerly fought
resolutely, and they were employed against their own tribes, their
employers having no fear of their deserting to the other side during
the engagement. They were lodged in the barracks at Thebes, or in the
provinces under the feudal lords and governors of the Pharaoh, and
were encouraged to retain their savage customs and warlike spirit. They
intermarried either with the fellahin or with women of their own tribes,
and were reinforced at intervals by fresh prisoners or volunteers.
Drafted principally into the Delta and the cities of Middle Egypt, they
thus ended by constituting a semi-foreign population, destined by nature
and training to the calling of arms, and forming a sort of warrior
caste, differing widely from the militia of former times, and known for
many generations by their national name of Mashauasha. As early as the
XIIth dynasty, the Pharaohs had, in a similar way, imported the Mazaiu
from Nubia, and had used them as a military police; Ramses III. now
resolved to naturalise the Libyans for much the same purpose. His
victory did not bear the immediate fruits that we might have expected
from his own account of it; the memory of the exploits of Ramses II.
haunted him, and, stimulated by the example of his ancestor at Qodshu,
he doubtless desired to have the sole credit of the victory over the
Libyans. He certainly did overcome their kings, and arrested their
invasion; we may go so far as to allow that he wrested from them the
provinces which they had occupied on the left bank of the Canopic
branch, from Marea to the Natron Lakes, but he did not conquer them,
and their power still remained as formidable as ever. He had gained a
respite at the point of the sword, but he had not delivered Egypt from
their future attacks.

[Illustration: 299.jpg one of the Libyan chiefs VANQUISHED BY RAMSES
III.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion.

He might perhaps have been tempted to follow up his success and assume
the offensive, had not affairs in Asia at this juncture demanded the
whole of his attention. The movement of great masses of European tribes
in a southerly and easterly direction was beginning to be felt by the
inhabitants of the Balkans, who were forced to set out in a double
stream of emigration--one crossing the Bosphorus and the Propontis
towards the centre of Asia Minor, while the other made for what was
later known as Greece Prop