l caprice to
those of the State. The inscriptions which princes caused to be devoted
to their own glorification, are so many enthusiastic panegyrics dealing
only with their uprightness and kindness towards the poor and lowly.
Every one of them represents himself as faultless: "the staff of support
to the aged, the foster father of the children, the counsellor of the
unfortunate, the refuge in which those who suffer from the cold in
Thebes may warm themselves, the bread of the afflicted which never
failed in the city of the South." Their solicitude embraced everybody
and everything: "I have caused no child of tender age to mourn; I have
despoiled no widow; I have driven away no tiller of the soil; I have
taken no workmen away from their foreman for the public works; none
have been unfortunate about me, nor starving in my time. When years of
scarcity arose, as I had cultivated all the lands of the nome of the
Gazelle to its northern and southern boundaries, causing its inhabitants
to live, and creating provisions, none who were hungry were found there,
for I gave to the widow as well as to the woman who had a husband, and I
made no distinction between high and low in all that I gave. If, on the
contrary, there were high Niles, the possessors of lands became rich in
all things, for I did not raise the rate of the tax upon the fields."
The canals engrossed all the prince's attention; he cleaned them out,
enlarged them, and dug fresh ones, which were the means of bringing
fertility and plenty into the most remote corners of his property. His
serfs had a constant supply of clean water at their door, and were no
longer content with such food as durra; they ate wheaten bread daily.
His vigilance and severity were such that the brigands dared no longer
appear within reach of his arm, and his soldiers kept strict discipline:
"When night fell, whoever slept by the roadside blessed me, and was [in
safety] as a man in his own house; the fear of my police protected him,
the cattle remained in the fields as in the stable; the thief was as the
abomination of the god, and he no more fell upon the vassal, so that the
latter no more complained, but paid exactly the dues of his domain, for
love" of the master who had procured for him this freedom from care.
This theme might be pursued at length, for the composers of epitaphs
varied it with remarkable cleverness and versatility of imagination. The
very zeal which they display in describing th