plagiarisms from the compositions of an earlier age. The writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, aware that they are destitute of originality, contentedly reproduce, with slight changes, the masterpieces of the fourteenth and fifteenth.1 The immediate successor of Rameses III. was his eldest son, Rameses IV., who bore the throne-names of Hak-ma and Ma-ma.2 Nothing is known of him excepting that he worked with great vigour the quarries of the valley of Hammamât and the adjoining rocky and sterile regions, which produced many excellent varieties of hard stone. What use he made of these materials it is impossible to say, since neither any one great edifice, nor any large number of small ones, bear his name. He set up some insignificant sculptures in the great temple of Ammon at Karnak, and made some small additions to his father's temple of Khonsu at Thebes; but beyond these, and some rock-inscriptions in the Hammamât region, no monuments of his reign have been identified. It appears by the Hammamât inscriptions that he held the throne for at least eighteen years, and we may conjecturally assign him the space between B.C. 1280 and B.C. 1260. The successor of Rameses IV. was neither his son nor his brother, nor even perhaps a member of the Rameside family. He took the quite new throne-name of Ammon-hi-khopeshef, but also called himself Rameses, and is known as Rameses V.6 Some ii. 1 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. P. 3 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 167-71, 1st ed.; Birch, Ancient Egypt, p. 147. 4 Denkmäler, pt. iii. pls. 220–222. 5 We must except also his tomb in the Biban-el-Moluk, which is a work of some importance. (See Lepsius, Grundplan des Grabes König Ramses IV., Berlin, 1867.) Lepsius, Königsbuch, Taf. xxxix. No. 505. 6 CH. XXII.] REIGNS OF THE SONS OF RAMESES III. 391 suppose him to have been a descendant of Siphthah; 1 but this is wholly uncertain. His only records are his tomb in the Biban-el-Moluk, afterwards appropriated by his successor, Rameses VI., and a single inscription at Silsilis, couched in inflated terms, which represents all Egypt as enraptured at his coronation, and the country as flourishing under his rule.2 It is certain that no dependence can be placed on such selflaudation, and not improbable that it covers an uneasy feeling, on the part of the monarch who has recourse to it, that his rule is the reverse of popular. On the death of the usurper the throne was regained by the Rameside family, and occupied (it is thought) by two princes, sons of Rameses III., who ruled conjointly. These were Rameses, his second, and Meri-Tum, his seventh son, who bore the office of high-priest of Ra in Heliopolis. It is suggested that while Rameses VI. reigned in Thebes and bore sway over the Upper Country, his younger brother held his court at the City of the Sun, and ruled over the Delta. In the tomb which the elder prince appropriated from his usurping predecessor, an astronomical ceiling is thought to furnish the date of B.C. 1240 for the time of its ornamentation, so that that year may be regarded as included in the sixth Rameses's reign. No historical events can be ascribed to it, but we have evidence that the Egyptian dominion still extended over the distant South, where a 'Prince of Kush still ruled as the Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii. Table ii. at end of volume. 2 Ibid. pp. 171-2; Denkmäler, pt. iii. pl. 223 b. 3 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 172-3, 1st ed. Others place Meri-Tum between Rameses VIII. and Rameses IX. (Birch, Ancient Egypt, p. 147). Birch, Ancient Egypt, p. 147; Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii. p. 173, 1st ed. The date rests upon the calculations of the French astronomer, Biot. Pharaoh's viceroy, with Adons of the various districts under him, and the Pharaoh's suzerainty was marked by the erection of statues in his honour, and the settlement upon them in perpetuity of landed estates.1 Conjointly with these two princes, or after their decease, two other sons of Rameses II. assumed the royal title, and are ranked as Pharaohs under the names of Rameses VII. and Rameses VIII. The latter bore the throne-name of Set-hi-khopeshef, which would seem to indicate that he was a votary of Sutech, whose worship was, it is clear, always held in respect by the Ramesside monarchs. Nothing is recorded of Rameses VII. and VIII. beyond their names. We may perhaps assign them, conjecturally, the space between B.C. 1230 and B.C. 1220. 3 With Rameses IX. we bid adieu to the immediate issue of Rameses III., and descend, at least a generation, to a grandson or great-grandson of the last warlike monarch. This king took the throne-name of Neferkara-sotep-en-ra, and held the throne for at least nineteen years, thus bringing us nearly to the close of the thirteenth century. His reign is remarkable for two novel circumstances. One of these was the trial of a number of sacrilegious malefactors, who had invaded the sanctity of the royal burial-places, plundered the royal mummies of their golden ornaments, burnt the coffins, and thrown the corpses on the ground. Kings and queens had alike suffered : Antefs of the eleventh dynasty, Sabak-adorers of the thirteenth, a queen Isis, a Ra-Sekenen, and even an ii. 1 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. | No. 512. pp. 174-7, 1st ed. 2 Ibid. Table ii. at end of vol. ii. 3 Lepsius, Königsbuch, Taf. xl. • The nineteenth year of Rameses IX. is found upon the monuments. (Birch, Ancient Egypt. p. 148.) CH. XXII.] REIGN OF RAMESES IX. 393 Amenôphis, the first of the name.1 All belief in the 'divinity that hedged a king,' according to the Egyptian religious system, must have passed away when a 'thieves' society was formed for the special purpose of secretly opening and robbing the tombs of the kings, in which even sacerdotal persons took a part.'2 We may perhaps trace in the proceedings a concealed purpose of bringing royalty into contempt; we cannot be mistaken in gathering from them a weakening of the old superstition which viewed the kings as gods. As yet, however, the new ideas had the general public sentiment against them. Opinion was greatly shocked by the disclosures made, and officials of the highest rank were nominated to form a court of inquiry which should investigate the business, and inflict condign punishment upon the guilty. Amenhotep, the highpriest of the Great Temple of Ammon at Thebes, the chief of the Egyptian hierarchy, presided over the court, and, after acquitting a certain number of the accused, not perhaps the least guilty, condemned eight persons as the real culprits, who were either bastinadoed or else put to death." The other novelty, which documents of the time. put before us, is the new position, relatively to the king, that the high-priest of the Theban Ammon seems now to begin to occupy. An acute observer, familiar with all the monumental evidence, makes indeed the remark, that, ‘from the time of Rameses III., the holy fathers, who bore the exalted dignity of chief priest in the temple-city of Ammon, were always coming more and more into the foreground of Egyptian history. 1 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. | vol. i. pp. 60-106. i. p. 247, 1st ed. Compare Chabas, Mélanges Egyptologiques, 3me série, 3 2 Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 182. Their influence with the kings assumed, step by step, a growing importance.' But even he does not note any tangible change until the reign of Rameses IX., when for the first time the high-priest of Ammon at Thebes steps forward as the great guardian, protector, and restorer of his shrine, and, whereas formerly it |