Poole, Reginald S.: The cities of Egypt (London, 1882)

THEBES.

5J

up in Ethiopia; and one of them constructed a great
artificial reservoir, the Lake Mceris, to drain off the
superfluous waters and store them for use in irrigating
the rich oasis in Middle Egypt, opening from the Nile
valley, now called the Feiyoom. The country was then
prosperous, and the rulers had no ambition of foreign
dominion. The weaker Theban kings who followed this
active line, or the yet obscurer rulers of Xois, were at
last forced to submit to foreign overlords, the Shepherd-
kings, whose story belongs to the city of Zoan. Centuries,
how many or how few we know not, passed, and at
last from Thebes arose the cry for independence. A
Theban tributary of the stranger-king threw oft" the yoke,
and led the nation in a long and terrible war, which only
closed when Egypt was again free, and a king of Thebes
once more the ruler of an undivided state. This was
about B.C. 1600, when the Eighteenth Dynasty began.

The old capital was not abandoned. Perhaps a
sentiment clung to the memory of her former greatness ;
perhaps the new kings desired to touch the loyalty of
their own people, and to avoid the risk of moving the
seat of dominion ; perhaps they loved the restful beauty
in which Thebes was set, to which she owed the long