no monument recording any further victory gained by him.
This, however, has not prevented his contemporaries from celebrating him
as a conquering and 'victorious king. He is portrayed standing erect in
his chariot ready to charge, or as carrying off two barbarians whom he
holds half suffocated in his sinewy arms, or as gleefully smiting the
princes of foreign lands. He acquitted himself of the duties of the
chase as became a true Pharaoh, for we find him depicted in the act of
seizing a lion by the tail and raising him suddenly in mid-air previous
to despatching him. These are, indeed, but conventional pictures of
war, to which we must not attach an undue importance. Egypt had need of
repose in order to recover from the losses it had sustained during the
years of struggle with the invaders. If Amenothes courted peace from
preference and not from political motives, his own generation profited
as much by his indolence as the preceding one had gained by the energy
of Ahrnosis. The towns in his reign resumed their ordinary life,
agriculture flourished, and commerce again followed its accustomed
routes. Egypt increased its resources, and was thus able to prepare
for future conquest. The taste for building had not as yet sufficiently
developed to become a drain upon the public treasury. We have, however,
records showing that Amenothes excavated a cavern in the mountain
of Ibrim in Nubia, dedicated to Satit, one of the goddesses of the
cataract.

[Illustration: 146.jpg Page Image]

It is also stated that he worked regularly the quarries of Silsileh,
but we do not know for what buildings the sandstone thus extracted was
destined.* Karnak was also adorned with chapels, and with at least one
colossus,** while several chambers built of the white limestone of Turah
were added to Ombos. Thebes had thus every reason to cherish the memory
of this pacific king.

* A bas-relief on the western bank of the river represents
him deified: Panaiti, the name of a superintendent of the
quarries who lived in his reign, has been preserved in
several graffiti, while another graffito gives us only the
protocol of the sovereign, and indicates that the quarries
were worked in his reign.

** The chambers of white limestone are marked I, K, on
Mariette's plan; it is possible that they may have been
merely decorated under Thutmosis III., whose cartouches
alternate with those of Amenothes I. The colo