Vainly did the rebels unite with the Thebans; Khiti “sowed terror over the world, and himself alone chastised the nomes of the south.”  While he was descending the river to restore the king to his capital, “the sky grew serene, and the whole country rallied to him; the commanders of the south and the archons of Heracleopolis, their legs tremble beneath them when the royal urous, ruler of the world, comes to suppress crime; the earth trembles, the South takes ship and flies, all men flee in dismay, the towns surrender, for fear takes hold on their members.”  Mirikari’s return was a triumphal progress:  “when he came to Heracleopolis the people ran forth to meet him, rejoicing in their lord; women and men together, old men as well as children.”  But fortune soon changed.  Beaten again and again, the Thebans still returned to the attack; at length they triumphed, after a struggle of nearly two hundred years, and brought the two rival divisions of Egypt under their rule.

[Illustration:  313.jpg PALETTE INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME OF MIRIKARI]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original, now in the Museum of the Louvre.  The palette is of wood, and bears the name of a contemporary personage; the outlines of the hieroglyphs are inlaid with silver wire.  It was probably found in the necropolis of Meir, a little to the north of Siut.  The sepulchral pyramid of the Pharaoh Mirikari is mentioned on a coffin in the Berlin Museum.

The few glimpses to be obtained of the early history of the first Theban dynasty give the impression of an energetic and intelligent race.  Confined to the most thinly populated, that is, the least fertile part of the valley, and engaged on the north in a ceaseless warfare which exhausted their resources, they still found time for building both at Thebes and in the most distant parts of their dominions.  If their power made but little progress southwards, at least it did not recede, and that part of Nubia lying between Aswan and the neighbourhood of Korosko remained in their possession.  The tribes of the desert, the Amamiu, the Mazaiu, and the Uauaiu often disturbed the husbandmen by their sudden raids; yet, having pillaged a district, they did not take possession of it as conquerors, but hastily returned to their mountains.  The Theban princes kept them in check by repeated counter-raids, and renewed the old treaties with them.  The inhabitants of the Great Oasis in the west, and the migratory peoples of the Land of the Gods, recognized the Theban suzerainty on the traditional terms.

[Illustration:  314.jpg THE BRICK PYRAMID OF ANTUFAA, AT THEBES]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Prisse d’Avennes. 
     This pyramid is now completely destroyed.

As in the times of Uni, the barbarians made up the complement of the army with soldiers who were more inured to hardships and more accustomed to the use of arms than the ordinary fellahin; and several obscure Pharaohs—­such as Monthotpu I. and Antuf III.—­owed their boasted victories over Libyans and Asiatics* to the energy of their mercenaries.