as there occurred revolutions in the destinies of Egypt.* However this may be, we know that from the first half of the seventh century B.C. the custom arose of placing beside “the divine worshipper” a princess of the dominant family, whom she adopted, and who thus became her heiress-designate.  Taharqa had in this way associated one of his sisters, Shapenuapit II., with the queen Amenertas when the latter had lost her husband, Pionkhi; and Shapenuapit, succeeding her adopted mother, had reigned over Thebes in the Ethiopian interest during many years.  There is nothing to show that she was married, and perhaps she was compensated for her official celibacy by being authorised to live the free life of an ordinary Pallacide;** her minister Montumihait directed her affairs for her so completely that the Assyrian conquerors looked upon him as petty king of Thebes.  Tanuatamanu confirmed him in his office when the Assyrians evacuated the Said, and the few years which had elapsed since that event had in no way modified the regime established immediately on their departure.

     * They would have been, in fact, in the same condition as
     the Hova queens of our century, who married the ministers
     who reigned in their names.

** It is perhaps these last female descendants of the high priests that are intended in a passage where Strabo speaks of the Pallacides who were chosen from among the most noble families of the city.  Diodorus mentions their tombs, quoting from Hecatous of Abdera, but he does not appear to know the nature of their life; but the name of Pallacides which he applies to them proves that their manner of life was really that which Strabo describes.

It is uncertain how long Assur-bani-pal in the north, and Tanuatamanu in the south, respectively maintained a precarious sovereignty over the portions of Egypt nearest to their own capitals.

[Illustration:  338.jpg STATUE OF A THEBAN QUEEN]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Bissing.  The statue, whose feet are missing, represents either Amenertas I. or Mutertas; it was never completely finished, and several of the parts have never received their final polish.

The opening of the reign of Psammetichus seems to have been fraught with difficulties, and the tradition which represents him as proscribed by his peers, and confined to the marshes of the sea-coast, has probably a certain basis of truth.  Pakruru, who had brought all the western part of the Delta under his own influence, and who, incessantly oscillating between Assyria and Ethiopia, had yet been able to preserve his power and his life, had certainly not of his own free will renounced the hope of some day wearing the double crown.  It was against him or his successor that Psammetichus must have undertaken his first wars, and it was perhaps with the help of Assyrian governors that the federal coalition drove him back to the coast.