of Memphis and Sais, and each of the regions of the Delta was divided into one or two fiefs, according to the number and importance of the towns it contained.  In the south, Thebes was too directly under the influence of Ethiopia to be able to exercise an independent policy with regard to the rest of the country.  In the north, two families contested the supremacy more or less openly.  One of them, whose hereditary domains included the Arabian, and parts of the surrounding nomes, was then represented by a certain Pakruru.  He had united under his banner the numerous petty chiefs of the eastern side of the Delta, the heirs of the ancient dynasties of Tanis and Bubastis, and his energy or ability must have made a good impression on the minds of his contemporaries, for they handed down his memory to their successors, who soon metamorphosed him into a popular legendary hero, famed both for his valour and wisdom.  The nobles of the western nomes acknowledged as their overlords the regents of Sais, the descendants of that Bocchoris who had for a short while brought the whole valley of the Nile under his sway.  Sabaco, having put his rival to death, had installed in his hereditary domains an Ethiopian named Ammeris, but this Ammeris had disappeared from the scene about the same time as his patron, in 704 B.C., and after him three princes at least had succeeded to the throne, namely, Stephinates, Nekhepsos, and Necho.* Stephinates had died about 680 B.C., without accomplishing anything which was worth recording.  Nekhepsos had had no greater opportunities of distinguishing himself than had fallen to the lot of his father, and yet legends grew up round his name as round that of Pakruru:  he was reputed to have been a great soothsayer, astrologist, and magician, and medical treatises were ascribed to him, and almanacs much esteemed by the superstitious in the Roman period.**

* The lists of Eusebius give the series Ammeres, Stephinates, Nekhepsos, Necho I., but Lepsius displaced Ammeres and identified him with the queen Amenertas; others have thought to recognise in him Miamun Pionkhi, or Tanuatamanu, the successor of Taharqa.  He must, however, be left in this place in the list, and we may perhaps consider him as the founder of the XXVIth dynasty.  If the number of seven years for the reign of Stephinates is adopted, we must suppose either that Manetho passed over the name of a prince at the beginning of the XXVIth dynasty, or that Ammeris was only enthroned at Memphis after the death of Sabaco; but the lists of the Syncellus and of Sothis assign 27 years to the reign of Stephinates.

     ** The astrological works of Nekhepsos are cited, among
     others, by Pliny, and it is probably he whom a Greek papyrus
     of the Salt Collection mentions under the name of Nekheus.