thickened around him or around his
nearest heirs. Sometimes, indeed, he took precautions to prevent an
outbreak and its disastrous consequences, by solemnly associating with
himself in the royal power the son he had chosen to succeed him: Egypt
in this case had to obey two masters, the younger of whom attended
to the more active duties of royalty, such as progresses through the
country, the conducting of military expeditions, the hunting of wild
beasts, and the administration of justice; while the other preferred to
confine himself to the _role_ of adviser or benevolent counsellor. Even
this precaution, however, was insufficient to prevent disasters. The
women of the seraglio, encouraged from without by their relations or
friends, plotted secretly for the removal of the irksome sovereign.*
Those princes who had been deprived by their father's decision of any
legitimate hope of reigning, concealed their discontent to no purpose;
they were arrested on the first suspicion of disloyalty, and were
massacred wholesale; their only chance of escaping summary execution was
either by rebellion** or by taking refuge with some independent tribe of
Libya or of the desert of Sinai.

* The passage of the Uni inscription, in which mention is
made of a lawsuit carried on against Queen Amitsi, probably
refers to some harem conspiracy. The celebrated lawsuit,
some details of which are preserved for us in a papyrus of
Turin, gives us some information in regard to a conspiracy
which was hatched in the harem against Ramses II.

** A passage in the "Instructions of Amenemhait" describes in
somewhat obscure terms an attack on the palace by
conspirators, and the wars which followed their undertaking.

[Illustration: 044.jpg The Island and Temple of Philae]

Did we but know the details of the internal history of Egypt, it would
appear to us as stormy and as bloody as that of other Oriental
empires: intrigues of the harem, conspiracies in the palace, murders of
heirs-apparent, divisions and rebellions in the royal family, were
the almost inevitable accompaniment of every accession to the Egyptian
throne.

The earliest dynasties had their origin in the "White Wall," but the
Pharaohs hardly ever made this town their residence, and it would be
incorrect to say that they considered it as their capital; each king
chose for himself in the Memphite or Letopolite nome, between the
entrance to the Fayuni