He accompanied their images in solemn processions; he poured out before them the wine and mystic milk, recited the formulas in their hearing, seized the bull who was the victim with a lasso and slaughtered it according to the rite consecrated by ancient tradition.  Private individuals had recourse to his intercession, when they asked some favour from on high; as, however, it was impossible for every sacrifice to pass actually through his hands, the celebrating priest proclaimed at the beginning of each ceremony that it was the king who made the offering—­Sutni di hotpu—­he and none other, to Osiris, Phtah, and Ka-Harmakhis, so that they might grant to the faithful who implored the object of their desires, and, the declaration being accepted in lieu of the act, the king was thus regarded as really officiating on every occasion for his subjects.*

I do not agree with Prof.  Ed. Meyer, or with Prof.  Erman, who imagine that this was the first instance of the practice, and that it had been introduced into Nubia before its adoption on Egyptian soil.  Under the Ancient Empire we meet with more than one functionary who styles himself, in some cases during his master’s lifetime, in others shortly after his death, “Prophet of Horus who lives in the palace,” or “Prophet of Kheops,” “Prophet of Sondi,” “Prophet of Kheops, of Mykerinos, of Usirkaf,” or “of other sovereigns.”

He thus maintained daily intercourse with the gods, and they, on their part, did not neglect any occasion of communicating with him.  They appeared to him in dreams to foretell his future, to command him to restore a monument which was threatened with ruin, to advise him to set out to war, to forbid him risking his life in the thick of the fight.

* Among other examples, the texts mention the dream in which Thutmosis IV., while still a royal prince, received from Phra-Harmakhis orders to unearth the Great Sphinx, the dream in which Phtah forbids Minephtah to take part in the battle against the peoples of the sea, that by which Tonuatamon, King of Napata, is persuaded to undertake the conquest of Egypt.  Herodotus had already made us familiar with the dreams of Sabaco and of the high priest Sethos.

Communication by prophetic dreams was not, however, the method usually selected by the gods:  they employed as interpreters of their wishes the priests and the statues in the temples.  The king entered the chapel where the statue was kept, and performed in its presence the invocatory rites, and questioned it upon the subject which occupied his mind.  The priest replied under direct inspiration from on high, and the dialogue thus entered upon might last a long time.  Interminable discourses, whose records cover the walls of the Theban temples, inform us what the Pharaoh said on such occasions, and in what emphatic tones the gods replied.  Sometimes the animated statues raised their voices in the darkness of the