Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

232 THE PRIESTS. [Chap. V.

a proper inquiry had been made, they were either
acquitted before this tribunal, or for minor delin-
quencies punished with the stick.

The priests were, after the kings, the principal
persons in the country. They had the management
of the affairs of state, and were the counsellors of
the sovereign; who, if he was not of the military
class, could only be elected from their order,* of
which in all cases, as king, it was absolutely neces-
sary he should become a member.| He bound
himself by the rules established by their conclave,
as well in the worship of the deities, to whom it
was his office to sacrifice in the temples,! as in his
general mode of living; and his compliance with
their regulations was repaid by the external and
public respect they manifested for his person.

The priests, as it is reasonable to suppose, en-
joyed the greatest privileges : and by a strict atten-
tion to their public and private duties, and a show
of self-denial,§ they claimed and obtained the credit
of purity both of body and mind; which, added to
a reverence for their learning and a dread of
their authority, gained an entire ascendency over
the minds of a superstitious people. Their dress

* Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride; and Plato in Politico.

f Like the caliphs, he was the head of church and state.

| Conf. Ezek. xlv. 17 : "It shall be the prince's part to give
burnt offerings and meat offerings and drink offerings in the
feasts."

§ They had but one wife, the other Egyptians had as many as
they wished. Herodotus and Diodorus do not agree on this
subject.—Diod. i. 80.