* E.g. Namrôti, under Piônkhi-Mîamun, whose rights were such
that he adopted the protocol of the Pharaohs.
** Stole 1959 of the Serapæum contains the names of five
successive princes of this city, the first of whom was
Namrôti, son of Osorkon II., and high priest of Thebes; a
member of the same family, named Pefzââbastît, had taken
cartouches under Osorkon III. of the XXIIIrd dynasty.
Thebes alone had managed to exclude these representatives of the ruling dynasty, and its princes, guided in this particular by the popular prejudice, persistently refused to admit into their bodyguard any but the long-tried Mâzaîu. Moreover, Thebes lost no opportunity of proving itself to be still the most turbulent of the baronies. Its territory had suffered no diminution since the time of Hrihor, and half of Upper Egypt, from Elephantine to Siut, acknowledged its sway.1
* It is evident that this was so from the first steps taken
by Piônkhi-Miamun’s generals: they meet the army and fleet
of Tafnakhti and the princes of the north right under the
walls of Hormopolis, but say nothing of any feudal princes
of the south. Their silence is explained if we assume that
Thebes, being a dependency of Ethiopia, retained at that
date, i.e. in the time of the XXIInd dynasty, the same or
nearly the same boundaries which it had won for itself under
the XXIst.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from the original now i
n the Louvre.
Through all the changes of dynasty its political constitution had remained unaltered; Amon still ruled there supreme as ever, and nothing was done until he had been formally consulted in accordance with ancient usage. Anputi, in spite of his being a son of Sheshonq, was compelled to adopt the title of high priest in order to rule in peace, and had married some daughter or niece of the last of the Painotmu. After his death, good care was taken to prevent the pontificate from passing to one of his children, as this would have re-established a Theban dynasty which might have soon proved hostile to that of Bubastis. To avoid this, Osorkon I. made over the office and fief to his own son Sheshonq. The latter, after a time, thought he was sufficiently powerful to follow the example of Paînotmu and adopt the royal cartouches; but, with all his ambition, he too failed to secure the succession to the male line of his descendants, for Osorkon II. appointed his own son Namrôti, already prince of Khninsu, to succeed him. The amalgamation of these two posts invested the person on whom they were conferred with almost regal power; Khninsu was, indeed, as we know, the natural rampart of Memphis and Lower Egypt against invasion from the south, and its possessor was in a position to control the fate of the empire almost as he pleased. Osorkon must have had weighty reasons for taking a step which placed him practically at the mercy of his son, and, indeed, events proved that but little reliance could be placed on the loyalty of the Thebans, and that energetic measures were imperative to keep them in the path of duty or lead them back to it. The decadence of the ancient capital had sadly increased since the downfall of the descendants of Hrihor.
The few public works which they had undertaken, and which Sheshonq I. encouraged to the best of his ability, had been suspended owing to want of money, and the craftsmen who had depended on them for support were suffering from poverty: the makers of small articles of a religious or funerary character, carvers of wood or stone, joiners, painters of mummy-cases, and workers in bronze, alone managed to eke out a bare livelihood, thanks to commissions still given to them by officials attached to the temples. Theban art, which in its best period had excelled in planning its works on a gigantic scale, now gladly devoted itself to the production of mere knick-knacks, in place of the colossal figures of earlier days.
