As in the case of the Egyptians of the Greek period, we can see only through a fog what took place after the deaths of Meneptah and Seti II. We know only for certain that the chiefs of the nomes were in perpetual strife with each other, and that a foreign power was dominant in the country as in the time of Apophis. The days of the kingdom would have been numbered if a deliverer had not promptly made his appearance. The direct line of Ramses II was extinct, but his innumerable sons by innumerable concubines had left a posterity out of which some at least might have the requisite ability and zeal, if not to save the empire, at least to lengthen its duration, and once more give to Thebes days of glorious prosperity.
Egypt had set out some five centuries before this for the conquest of the world, and fortune had at first smiled upon her enterprise. Tehutimes I, Tehutimes III, and the several Pharaohs bearing the name of Amenhotep, had marched with their armies from the upper waters of the Nile to the banks of the Euphrates, and no power had been able to withstand them. New nations, however, soon rose up to oppose her, and the Hittites in Asia and the Libyans of the Sudan together curbed her ambition. Neither the triumphs of Ramses II nor the victory of Meneptah had been able to restore her prestige, or the lands of which her rivals had robbed her beyond her ancient frontier. Now her own territory itself was threatened, and her own well-being was in question; she was compelled to consider, not how to rule other tribes, great or small, but how to keep her own possessions intact and independent; in short, her very existence was at stake.[b]
FROM SETNEKHT TO RAMSES VIII AND MERI-AMEN MERI-TMU
In the midst of the unsettled state of affairs a new dynasty arose under the leadership of Setnekht, a descendant of Ramses II and governor of Thebes, who with some difficulty succeeded in quelling the rebels and subjugating the Syrian Arisu. “He was like the gods Kheper and Sutekh in his energy, repairing the state of disorder of the whole country, killing the barbarians who were in the Delta, and purifying the great realm of Egypt. He was regent of the two countries on the throne of Tmu (the chief god of Heliopolis) devoting himself so well to the reorganisation of what had been upset, that each one found a brother in every one of those from whom they had been so long separated; and re-establishing the temples and sacrifices so well that the traditional homage was rendered to the divine cycles.”