people, the privileged guardians of his body and his double,
and competent to perpetuate the line of the solar kings. The Theban
appanage constituted their dowry, and even if their sex prevented
them from discharging all those civil, military, and religious duties
required by their position, no one else had the right to do so on their
behalf, unless he was expressly chosen by them for the purpose. When
once married they deputed their husbands to act for them; so long as
they remained either single or widows, some exalted personage, the
prophet of Amon or Montu, the ruler of Thebes, or the administrator
of the Said, managed their houses and fiefs for them with such show of
authority that strangers were at times deceived, and took him for the
reigning monarch of the country.*

* Thus Harua, in the time of Amenertas, was prince and chief
over the servants of the "Divine Worshipper." Mantumihait,
in the time of Taharqa and of Tanuatamanu, was ruler of
Thebes, and fourth prophet of Amon, and it is he who is
described in the Assyrian monuments as King of Thebes.

The Pharaohs had, therefore, a stronger incentive than ever to secure
exclusive possession of these women, and if they could not get all of
them safely housed in their harems, they endeavoured, at any rate, to
reserve for themselves the chief among them, who by purity of descent or
seniority in age had attained the grade of _Divine Worshipper_. Kashta
married a certain Shapenuapit, daughter of Osorkon III. and a Theban
pallacide;* it is uncertain whether he eventually became king over
Ethiopia and the Sudan or not. So far, we have no proof that he did,
but it seems quite possible when we remember that one of his children,
Shabaku (Sabaco), subsequently occupied the throne of Napata in addition
to that of Thebes. Kashta does not appear to have possessed sufficient
energy to prevent the Delta and its nomes from repudiating the Ethiopian
supremacy. The Saites, under Tafnakhti or Bocchoris, soon got the upper
hand, and it was to them that the Syrian vassals of Nineveh looked
for aid, when death removed the conqueror who had trampled them so
ruthlessly underfoot. Ever since the fall of Arpad, Hadrach, and
Damascus, Shabarain, a town situated somewhere in the valley of the
Orontes or of the Upper Litany,** and hitherto but little known, had
served as a rallying-point for the disaffected Aramaean tribes: on
the accession of Shalmaneser V. it ventu