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In the meantime, the funeral was prepared, and on the last day the body was placed in state within the vestibule of the tomb, and an account was then given of the life and conduct of the deceased. It was permitted to any one present to offer himself as an accuser, and the voice of the people might prevent a sovereign enjoying the customary funeral obsequies; a worldly ordeal, the dread of which tended to stimulate the Egyptian monarchs to the practice of their duty far more than any feeling inculcated by respect for the laws or the love of virtue.

FIRST CASTE: THE PRIESTS.

The Egyptians, as I have already observed, were divided into four principal castes: the sacerdotal order, the peasants*, the townsmen, and the common people. Next to the king, the priests held the first rank, and from them were chosen his confidential and responsible adviserst, the judges, and all the principal officers of state. They associated with the monarch, whom they assisted in the performance of his public duties, and to whom they explained, from the sacred books, those moral lessons which were laid down for his conduct, and which he was required to observe; and by their

* I have included the military under this general denomination on the authority of Diodorus; but I suppose a great distinction existed in the subdivisions of the caste, and the military order, which was one of them, must have held a rank far above the others.

"The wise counsellors of Pharaoh." Isaiah, xix. 11. Diodorus, i. 73.

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great experience, their knowledge of the past, and their skill in augury and astronomy, they were supposed to presage future events, and to foresee an impending calamity, or the success of any undertaking. It was not one man or one woman, as Diodorus observes, who was appointed to the priesthood, but many were employed together in performing sacrifices and other ceremonies; and each college of priests was distinguished according to the deity to whose service it belonged, or according to the peculiar office held by its members.

The principal classes into which the sacerdotal order was divided have been already enumerated; there were also many minor priests of various deities, as well as the scribes and priests of the kings*, and numerous other divisions of the caste. Nor should we omit the priestesses of the gods, or of the kings and queens, each of whom bore a title indicating her peculiar office. Of the former, the Pellices, or Pallacides, of Amun, are the most remarkable, as the importance of their post sufficiently proves; and if we are not correctly informed of the real extent and nature of their duties, yet, since females of the noblest families, and princesses, as well as the queens themselves, esteemed it an honour to perform them, we may conclude the post was one of the highest to which they could aspire in the service of religion.

They are the same whom Herodotus mentions

*Conf. the Rosetta stone and the sculptures, as well as the papyri mentioned by Dr. Young, Hierog. Lit. p. 72.

as γυναικας ιρηΐας *, consecrated to the Theban Jove, whose sepulchres, said by Diodorus to have been about ten stadia from the tomb of Osymandyast, are still seen at Thebes, in a valley 3000 feet behind the ruins of Medeenet Haboo: and this fact strongly confirms, and is confirmed by, the evidence of the sculptures, which show them to have been females of the highest rank, since all the occupants of those tombs were either the wives or daughters of kings.

Besides this class of priestesses, was another of similar rank, apparently a subdivision of the same, who fulfilled certain duties entrusted only to the wives and daughters of priests, and not unusually to members of the same family as the Pallacides. They had also the privilege of holding the sacred sistra in religious ceremonies, before the altar and on other occasions, and were attached to the service of the same deity.‡

The ridiculous story of their prostitution could only have originated in the depraved notions and ignorance of the Greeks, fond of the marvellous, and notorious as they were for a superficial acquaintance with the customs of foreign nations; and it is unnecessary to request a sensible person to consider, whether it is more probable that women, who devoted themselves to the service of religion, among the most pious people of antiquity S, and who held the rank and consequence

* Herod. ii. 54.

See wood-cut, p. 260.
§ I mean, of course, of profane nations.

+ Diod. i. 47.

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necessarily enjoyed by the wives and daughters of a monarch, and of the principal nobles of a country, should have sacrificed every feeling of delicacy and virtue, or that the authors of the story were deceived, and perhaps intended to deceive others.

Herodotus states that women were not eligible to the priesthood, either of a male or female deity, and that men were alone admitted to this post*; but his remark evidently applies to the office of pontiff, or at least to some of the higher sacerdotal orders, from his referring in another placet to women devoted to the service of Amun, as well as from the authority of other writers. Diodorus+, indeed, describes Athyrtis, the daughter of Sesostris, so well versed in divination that she foretold to her father the future success of his arms, and engaged him to prosecute his designs of conquest: her knowledge in these matters being sufficient to influence the conduct of the monarch, who was himself, in the capacity of high priest, well versed in all the secrets of religion and her visions and omens were observed in the temple itself. Again, in the Rosetta stone, and the papyri of Paris and Sig. D'Anastasy §, we find direct mention made of the priestesses of the queens. In the former, "Areia, the daughter of Diogenes, being priestess of Arsinoe, the daughter of Philadelphus and Eirene, the daughter of Ptolemy, priestess of Arsinoe, the daughter of Philopator:

* Herod. ii. 39.

Diod. i. 53.

+ Herod. ii. 54.

Dr. Young's Hierog. Literature, p. 72. and 65.

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