** It is evident that this was so, from a romance discovered
     by Krall.

*** One need only go to the Louvre and compare the Apis stelae erected during this period with those engraved in the time of the XXVIth dynasty, in order to realise the low ebb to which the later kings of the XXIInd dynasty had fallen:  the fact that the chapel and monuments were built under their direction shows that they were still masters of Memphis.  We have no authentic date for Sheshonq II., and the twenty-ninth year is the latest known in the case of Takeloti II., but we know that Sheshonq III. reigned fifty- two years, and, after two years of Pimi, we find a reference to the thirty-seventh year of Sheshonq IV.  If we allow a round century for these last kings we are not likely to be far out:  this would place the close of the Bubastite dynasty somewhere about 780 B.C.

When the last of these passed away after an inglorious reign of at least thirty-seven years, the prestige of his race had so completely declined that the country would have no more of it; the sceptre passed into the hands of another dynasty, this time of Tanite origin.* It was probably a younger branch of the Bubastite family allied to the Ramessides and Theban Pallacides.  Petu-bastis, the first of the line, secured recognition in Thebes,** and throughout the rest of Egypt as well, but his influence was little greater than that of his predecessors; as in the past, the real power was in the hands of the high priests.

     * The following list gives the names of the Pharaohs of the
     XXIIth dynasty in so far as they have been ascertained up
     to the present:—­

[Illustration:  252.jpg TABLE OF PHARAOHS OF THE XXIITH DYNASTY]

     ** This fact has recently been placed beyond doubt by
     inscriptions found on the quay at Karnak near the water-
     marks of the Nile.

One of them, Auiti by name, even went so far, in the fourteenth or fifteenth year, as to declare himself king, and had his cartouches inscribed on official documents side by side with those of the Tanite monarch.* His kingship died with him, just as that of Patnotmu had done in similar circumstances, and two years later we find his successor, Harsiisit, a mere high priest without pretensions to royalty.

* No. 26 of Legrain’s inscriptions tells us the height of the Nile in the sixteenth year of Petubastit, which was also the second year of King Auiti.  Seeing that Auiti’s name occurs in the place occupied by that of the high priest of Thebes in other inscriptions of the same king, I consider it probable that he was reigning in Thebes itself, and that he was a high priest who had become king in the same way as Painotmu under the XXIst dynasty.

[Illustration:  253.jpg KING PETUBASTIS AT PRAYER]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small door now in the Louvre.