officers and garrisons would be seriously jeopardised, all of whom must be maintained there if the country was to be permanently retained.  The inclination to meddle in the affairs of Syria always displayed by the Pharaohs, and their obsolete claims to rule the whole country as far as the Euphrates, did not allow of their autonomy being restored to them at the risk of the immediate renewal of their intrigues with Tyre or Judah, and the fomenting of serious rebellions among the vassal princes of Palestine.  On the other hand, Egypt was by its natural position so detached from the rest of the empire that it was certain to escape from the influence of Nineveh as soon as the pressure of circumstances obliged the suzerain to relax his efforts to keep it in subjection.  Besides this, Ethiopia lay behind Egypt, almost inaccessible in the fabled realms of the south, always ready to provoke conspiracies or renew hostilities when the occasion offered.  Montumihait had already returned to Thebes on the retreat of the Assyrian battalions, and though Taharqa, rendered inactive, as it was said, by a dream which bade him remain at Napata,* had not reappeared north of the cataract, he had sent Tanuatamanu, the son of his wife by Sabaco, to administer the province in his name.** Taharqa died shortly after (666 B.C.), and his stepson was preparing to leave Thebes in order to be solemnly crowned at Gebel Barkal, when he saw one night in a dream two serpents, one on his right hand, the other on his left.  The soothsayers whom he consulted on the matter prognosticated for him a successful career:  “Thou holdest the south countries; seize thou those of the north, and let the crowns of the two regions gleam upon thy brow!” He proceeded at once to present himself before his divine father Amon of Napata, and, encountering no opposition from the Ethiopian priests or nobles, he was able to fulfil the prediction almost immediately after his coronation.***

* The legend quoted by Herodotus relates that Sabaco, having slain Necho I., the father of Psammetichus, evacuated Egypt which he had conquered, and retired to Ethiopia in obedience to a dream.  The name of Sabaco was very probably substituted for that of Taharqa in the tradition preserved in Sais and Memphis, echoes of which reached the Greek historian in the middle of the fifth century B.C.

     ** It appears, from the Stele of the Dream, that
     Tanuatamanu was in the Thebaid at the time of his accession
     to the throne.

*** Steindorff thinks that Tanuatamanu had been officially associated with himself on the throne by Taharqa, and Schsefer supposes that the dream dates from the first year of their joint reign.  The presence of Tanuatamanu beside Taharqa, in the small Theban temple, the bas-reliefs of which were published by Mariette, does not necessarily prove that the two kings reigned conjointly:  it may equally well indicate that the one accomplished the work commenced by the