upon Pharaoh.  The barons, kept in check by Ahmosis and Amenothes I., restricted by the successors of these sovereigns to the position of simple officers of the king, profited by the general laxity to recover as many as possible of their ancient privileges.  For half a century and more, fortune had given them as masters only aged princes, not capable of maintaining continuous vigilance and firmness.  The invasions of the peoples of the sea, the rivalry of the claimants to the throne, and the intrigues of ministers had, one after the other, served to break the bonds which fettered them, and in one generation they were able to regain that liberty of action of which they had been deprived for centuries.  To this state of things Egypt had been drifting from the earliest times.  Unity could be maintained only by a continuous effort, and once this became relaxed, the ties which bound the whole country together were soon broken.  There was another danger threatening the country beside that arising from the weakening of the hands of the sovereign, and the turbulence of the barons.  For some three centuries the Theban Pharaohs were accustomed to bring into the country after each victorious campaign many thousands of captives.  The number of foreigners around them had, therefore, increased in a striking manner.  The majority of these strangers either died without issue, or their posterity became assimilated to the indigenous inhabitants.  In many places, however, they had accumulated in such proportions that they were able to retain among themselves the remembrance of their origin, their religion, and their customs, and with these the natural desire to leave the country of their exile for their former fatherland.  As long as a strict watch was kept over them they remained peaceful subjects, but as soon as this vigilance was relaxed rebellion was likely to break out, especially amongst those who worked in the quarries.  Traditions of the Greek period contain certain romantic episodes in the history of these captives.  Some Babylonian prisoners brought back by Sesostris, these traditions tell us, unable to endure any longer the fatiguing work to which they were condemned, broke out into open revolt.

[Illustration:  268.jpg AMENMESIS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a picture in Rosellini.

They made themselves masters of a position almost opposite Memphis, and commanding the river, and held their ground there with such obstinacy that it was found necessary to give up to them the province which they occupied:  they built here a town, which they afterwards called Babylon.  A similar legend attributes the building of the neighbouring village of Troiu to captives from Troy.*

The scattered barbarian tribes of the Delta, whether Hebrews or the remnant of the iiyksos, had endured there a miserable lot ever since the accession of the Ramessides.  The rebuilding of the cities which had been destroyed there during the wars with the Hyksos had restricted the extent of territory on which they could pasture their herds.  Ramses II. treated them as slaves of the treasury,** and the Hebrews were not long under his rule before they began to look back with regret on the time of the monarchs “who knew Joseph."**