commanded them to store the honorarium bestowed upon them in one of the chambers of the house, where henceforth prodigies of the strangest character never ceased to manifest themselves.  Every time one entered the place a murmur was heard of singing, music, and dancing, while acclamations such as those with which kings are wont to be received gave sure presage of the destiny which awaited the newly born.  The manuscript is mutilated, and we do not know how the prediction was fulfilled.  If we may trust the romance, the three first princes of the Vth dynasty were brothers, and of priestly descent, but our experience of similar stories does not encourage us to take this one very seriously:  did not such tales affirm that Kheops and Khephren were brothers also?

The Vth dynasty manifested itself in every respect as the sequel and complement of the IVth.* It reckons nine Pharaohs after the three which tradition made sons of the god Ra himself and of Ruditdidifc.  They reigned for a century and a half; the majority of them have left monuments, and the last four, at least, Usirniri Anu, Menkau-horu, Dadkeri Assi, and Unas, appear to have ruled gloriously.  They all built pyramids,** they repaired temples and founded cities.***

     * A list is appended of the known Pharaohs of the Vth
     dynasty, restored as far as can be, with the closest
     approximate dates of their reigns:—­

[Illustration:  215.jpg TABLE OF PHARAOHS OF THE VTH DYNASTY]

** It is pretty generally admitted, but without convincing proofs, that the pyramids of Abusir served as tombs for the Pharaohs in the Vth dynasty, one for Sahuri, another to Usirniri Anu, although Wiedemann considers that the truncated pyramid of Dahshur was the tomb of this king.  I am inclined to think that one of the pyramids of Saqqara was constructed by Assi; the pyramid of Unas was opened in 1881, and the results made known by Maspero, Etudes de Mythologie et d’Archeologie, vol. i. p. 150, et seq., and Recueil de Travaux, vols. iv. and v.  The names of the majority of the pyramids are known to us from the monuments:  that of Usirkaf was called “Uabisitu”; that of Sahuri, “Khabi”; that of Nofiririkeri, “Bi”; that of Anu, “Min-isuitu”; that of Menkauhoru, “Nutirisuitu”; that of Assi, “Nutir”; that of Unas, “Nofir-isuitu.”

*** Pa Sahuri, near Esneh, for instance, was built by Sahuri.  The modern name of the village of Sahoura still preserves, on the same spot, without the inhabitants suspecting it, the name of the ancient Pharaoh.

[Illustration:  210.jpg STATUE IN ROSE-COLOURED GRANITE OF THE PHARAOH ANU, IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The Bedouin of the Sinaitic peninsula gave them much to do.  Sahuri brought these nomads to reason, and perpetuated the memory of his victories by a stele, engraved on the face of one of the rocks in the Wady Magharah; Anu obtained some successes over them, and Assi repulsed them in the fourth year of his reign.  On the whole, they maintained Egypt in the position of prosperity and splendour to which their predecessors had raised it.