last-named precedence over
the usurpers of the Ethiopian dynasty; the Tanites continued to be the
incarnate representatives of legitimate power, and when Osorkon III.
died, in 732, it was his son Psamutis who was regarded as the Lord of
Egypt. Tafnakhti had, in his defeat, gained formal recognition of his
royalty. He was no longer a mere successful adventurer, a hero of the
hour, whose victories were his only title-deeds, whose rights rested
solely on the argument of main force. Pionkhi, in granting him amnesty,
had conferred official investiture on him and on his descendants.
Henceforth his rule at Sais was every whit as legitimate as that of
Osorkon at Bubastis, and he was not slow in furnishing material proof of
this, for he granted himself cartouches, the uraeus, and all the other
insignia of royalty. These changes must have been quickly noised abroad
throughout Asia. Commercial intercourse between Syria and Egypt was
maintained as actively as ever, and the merchant caravans and fleets
exported with regularity the news of events as well as the natural
products of the soil or of industry. The tidings of an Ethiopian
conquest and of the re-establishment of an undivided empire in the
valley of the Nile, coming as they did at the very moment when the first
effects of the Assyrian revival began to be so keenly felt, could not
fail to attract the attention and arouse the hopes of Syrian statesmen.
The Philistines, who had never entirely released themselves from the
ties which bound them to the Pharaohs of the Delta, felt no repugnance
at asking for a renewal of their former protection.

[Illustration: 276.jpg KING TAFNAKHTI PRESENTS A FIELD TO TUMU AND TO
BASTIT]

Drawn by Boudier, from Mallet's photograph of the stele in
the Museum at Athens.

As for the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Damascus,
they began to consider whether they had not here, in Africa, among the
members of a race favourably disposed towards them by the memories of
the past and by its ambition, hereditary allies against Nineveh. The
fact that Egypt was torn by domestic dissensions and divided into a
score of rival principalities in no way diminished their traditional
admiration for its wealth or their confidence in its power; Assyria
itself was merely an agglomeration of turbulent provinces, vassal
cities, and minor kingdoms, artificially grouped round the ancient
domain of Assur, and yet the convulsions by which it was pe