ABSTRACT
The great city of Thebes was the capital of ancient Egypt from the sixteenth century before Christ till the Assyrian armies sacked it more than eight hundred years later. Even as early as the Middle Kingdom its chieftains had made themselves rulers of Egypt, and incorporated the name of the Theban god in their own names; four Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty were called Amon-em-hat (Amon in front). But when the “impure foot” of the foreign Hyksos invaded the country, Thebes retired into the obscurity of a small provincial town. After many generations there came a great rising against the invader, and the Theban royal family produced one military genius after another. Under these great generals Egypt became united, with a Theban prince as Pharaoh; step by step the Hyksos were driven out, the Egyptian kindgom being steadily consolidated as the invaders were expelled. Then the military genius reached its highest point in Tehutmes III, who carried the arms of Egypt beyond her borders, and made her the great world-power for many centuries. The glory of Thebes increased with the increasing power of her princes, till the small provincial town—originally nothing more than a collection of lattice-and-mud huts—became “hundred-gated Thebes”, the capital of a mighty empire.
