to distinguish the Hyksos prince from his predecessors on the throne of Egypt.  That one respect was religion.  The supreme object of Hyksos worship continued to be Sutekh, the Baal of Western Asia, whose cult the foreigners had brought with them from their old homes.  But even Sutekh was assimilated to Ra, the Sun-god of On, and the Hyksos Pharaohs felt no scruple in imitating the native kings and combining their own names with that of Ra.  It was only the Egyptians who refused to admit the assimilation, and insisted on identifying Sutekh with Set the enemy of Horus.

At the outset all Egypt was compelled to submit to the Hyksos domination.  Hyksos monuments have been found as far south as Gebelen and El-Kab, and the first Hyksos dynasty established its seat in Memphis, the old capital of the country.  Gradually, however, the centre of Hyksos power retreated into the delta.  Zoan or Tanis, the modern San, became the residence of the court:  here the Hyksos kings were in close proximity to their kindred in Asia, and were, moreover, removed from the unmixed Egyptian population further south.  From Zoan, “built”—­or rather rebuilt—­“seven years” after Hebron (Num. xiii. 22), they governed the valley of the Nile.  Their rule was assisted by the mutual jealousies and quarrels of the native feudal princes who shared between them the land of Egypt.  The foreigner kept his hold upon the country by means of the old feudal aristocracy.

Thebes, however, had never forgotten that it had been the birthplace and capital of the powerful Pharaohs of the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties, of the mighty princes who had conquered the Soudan, and ruled with an iron hand over the feudal lords.  The heirs of the Theban Pharaohs still survived as princes of Thebes, and behind the strong walls of El-Kab they began to think of independence.  Apophis II. in his court at Zoan perceived the rising storm, and endeavoured to check it at its beginning.  According to the story of a later day, he sent insulting messages to the prince of Thebes, and ordered him to worship Sutekh the Hyksos god.  The prince defied his suzerain, and the war of independence began.  It lasted for several generations, during which the Theban princes made themselves masters of Upper Egypt, and established a native dynasty of Pharaohs which reigned simultaneously with the Hyksos dynasty in the North.

Step by step the Hyksos stranger was pushed back to the north-eastern corner of the delta.  At length Zoan itself fell into the hands of the Egyptians, and the Hyksos took refuge in the great fortress of Avaris on the extreme border of the kingdom.  Here they were besieged by the Theban prince Ahmes, and eventually driven back to the Asia from which they had come.  The eighteenth dynasty was founded, and Ahmes entered on that career of Asiatic conquest which converted Canaan into an Egyptian province.  At first the war was one of revenge; but it soon became one of conquest, and the war of independence was followed