Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/244

 confusion and civil war. The names of rival kings are preserved, but the details of the history are very obscure. A good general impression, however, of the disastrous scenes amidst which the nineteenth dynasty closed is given by Rameses, first king of the succeeding dynasty. 'The land,' he tells us, 'had fallen into confusion; each man did as he chose; there was no sovereign master. The princes of the nomes bore sway, and men slaughtered each other through fear and jealousy. The end of these years of calamity was that Aarsu, a Syrian by birth, gained the chief supremacy, and the whole land did him homage. The gods fared no better than men; their images were overthrown, and no oblations were brought to the temples.

'Then was Setnekht, the beloved of Amen, raised up by the gods. He was like Set in the day of his wrath, and terrible like the god of war. He took command of the whole country, and destroyed the evil-doers who had wasted Lower Egypt; he purified the great throne of Khemi, and restored that which had been disturbed. Each man saw and knew his