and connections, past and present queens, sisters, concubines, uncles, brothers, cousins, nephews, sons and grandsons of kings who crowded the harem and the palace.  The women contended among themselves for the affection of the master, on behalf of themselves or their children.  The children were jealous of one another, and had often no bond of union except a common hatred for the son whom the chances of birth had destined to be their ruler.  As long as he was full of vigour and energy, Pharaoh maintained order in his family; but when his advancing years and failing strength betokened an approaching change in the succession, competition showed itself more openly, and intrigue thickened around him or around his nearest heirs.  Sometimes, indeed, he took precautions to prevent an outbreak and its disastrous consequences, by solemnly associating with himself in the royal power the son he had chosen to succeed him:  Egypt in this case had to obey two masters, the younger of whom attended to the more active duties of royalty, such as progresses through the country, the conducting of military expeditions, the hunting of wild beasts, and the administration of justice; while the other preferred to confine himself to the role of adviser or benevolent counsellor.  Even this precaution, however, was insufficient to prevent disasters.  The women of the seraglio, encouraged from without by their relations or friends, plotted secretly for the removal of the irksome sovereign.* Those princes who had been deprived by their father’s decision of any legitimate hope of reigning, concealed their discontent to no purpose; they were arrested on the first suspicion of disloyalty, and were massacred wholesale; their only chance of escaping summary execution was either by rebellion** or by taking refuge with some independent tribe of Libya or of the desert of Sinai.

* The passage of the Uni inscription, in which mention is made of a lawsuit carried on against Queen Amitsi, probably refers to some harem conspiracy.  The celebrated lawsuit, some details of which are preserved for us in a papyrus of Turin, gives us some information in regard to a conspiracy which was hatched in the harem against Ramses II.

     ** A passage in the “Instructions of Amenemhait” describes in
     somewhat obscure terms an attack on the palace by
     conspirators, and the wars which followed their undertaking.

[Illustration:  044.jpg The Island and Temple of Philae]

Did we but know the details of the internal history of Egypt, it would appear to us as stormy and as bloody as that of other Oriental empires:  intrigues of the harem, conspiracies in the palace, murders of heirs-apparent, divisions and rebellions in the royal family, were the almost inevitable accompaniment of every accession to the Egyptian throne.