*** The text of Manetho speaks of taxes which he imposed on the high and low lands, which would seem to include the Thebaid in the kingdom; it is, however, stated in the next few pages that the successors of Salatis waged an incessant war against the Egyptians, which can only refer to hostilities against the Thebans. We are forced, therefore, to admit, either that Manetho took the title of lord of the high and low lands which belonged to Salatis, literally, or that the Thebans, after submitting at first, subsequently refused to pay tribute, thus provoking a war.
**** Manetho here speaks of Assyrians; this is an error which is to be explained by the imperfect state of historical knowledge in Greece at the time of the Macedonian supremacy. We need not for this reason be led to cast doubt upon the historic value of the narrative: we must remember the suzerainty which the kings of Babylon exercised over Syria, and read _Chaldæans_ where Manetho has written _Assyrians_. In Herodotus Assyria is the regular term for Babylonia, and Babylonia is called the land of the Assyrians.
From the natives of the Delta, who were temporarily paralysed by their reverses, he had, for the moment, little to fear: restricting himself, therefore, to establishing forts at the strategic points in the Nile valley in order to keep the Thebans in check, he led the main body of his troops to the frontier on the isthmus. Pacific immigrations had already introduced Asiatic settlers into the Delta, and thus prepared the way for securing the supremacy of the new rulers; in the midst of these strangers, and on the ruins of the ancient town of Hâwârît-Avaris, in the Sethroifce nome--a place connected by tradition with the myth of Osiris and Typhon--Salatis constructed an immense entrenched camp, capable of sheltering two hundred and forty thousand men. He visited it yearly to witness the military manoeuvres, to pay his soldiers, and to preside over the distribution of rations. This permanent garrison protected him from a Chaldæan invasion, a not unlikely event as long as Syria remained under the supremacy of the Babylonian kings; it furnished his successors also with an inexhaustible supply of trained soldiers, thus enabling them to complete the conquest of Lower Egypt. Years elapsed before the princes of the south would declare themselves vanquished, and five kings--Anôn, Apachnas, Apôphis I., Iannas, and Asses--passed their lifetime in a perpetual warfare, desirous of tearing up Egypt to the very root. These Theban kings, who were continually under arms against the barbarians, were subsequently classed in a dynasty by themselves, the XVth of Manetho, but they at last succumbed to the invader, and Asses became master of the entire country. His successors in their turn formed a dynasty, the XVIth, the few remaining monuments of which are found scattered over the length and breadth of the valley from the shores of the Mediterranean to the rocks of the first cataract.