Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/301

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  • cessant warfare that had won so triumphant a

military ascendency, she was assailed on every side by the nations to whom she had long been a terror, and by her own subject provinces, ever restlessly eager to cast off the yoke of her tyranny.

Meanwhile Psammetichus successfully achieved the other portion of his task; he reunited the north under his sway, and made peace with the rulers of the south. The descendants of the priest-king, of Piankhi and of Tirhakah henceforth made Napata the centre of their dominion, and abandoned all thought of ruling even in Upper Egypt. The friendship thus formed was cemented by the marriage of Psammetichus with a princess of the southern dynasty. She was daughter of a king named Piankhi and his beautiful wife Ameniritis: a statue of her has been preserved, of which Brugsch says, "Sweet peace seems to hover about her features; the very flowers in her hand suggest her high mission as the reconciler of the long feud.'

Under the Saite[1] dynasty, established by*

  1. Sais, in the Delta, was a magnificent city, and the temple of the goddess Neith, who was worshipped there, was celebrated for its splendour. The worship of Neith goes back to the earliest times, but