The great offices of State, of course, often fell to men of high rank, and of hereditary influence. Rekhmara himself came of noble family, and succeeded his uncle in the vizierate. But this was by no means necessarily the case. Egypt always presented the career open to talent which Napoleon desired. “All through the history there was a free rising of ability from the lower levels, as we see in England--Wolsey, the butcher’s son, and many others.... This was a chief cause of the durability of Egyptian society; great as the differences were, there was a gradation interlocking all through, as in England.” A notable instance of the rise of a talented man is given by the tomb-inscription of that same Una whom we have already seen presiding over the trial of Queen Amtes. Beginning his official career as an “inferior custodian of the domain of Pharaoh,” Una during three reigns steadily climbed up the official ladder, until at last he became governor of the South under Merenra, and was the favoured official chosen to fetch the granite for the royal sarcophagus and pyramid from the quarries at Aswan. Senmut again, the famous architect and minister of Queen Hatshepsut, tells us in the inscription on his statue at Karnak that he was “the greatest of the great in the whole land,” and seems to have held power not inferior to that of the vizier, though there is no evidence that he held that office; yet he tells us in his Berlin inscription that “his ancestors were not found in writing,” or in other words, that he was a self-made man. The elaborately organised court held many offices both ornamental and useful, which gave openings for talent or ambition. Perhaps one of the most influential positions was one which involved no very important duties, but brought the holder of it into close and constant touch with Pharaoh. This was the position of the “fan-bearer at the king’s right hand.” His function was purely ornamental, and he can be seen in paintings and reliefs carrying a tiny fan beside the king’s litter as the symbol of his office, while the real work of fanning is done by the ordinary fan-bearers with their big business-like fans; but he was the highest court-official, a sort of Lord Chamberlain, with powers of giving or denying entry to the presence, and no doubt his favour was all-important to a petitioner, as that of one who had the ear of Pharaoh. As to the rest of the court, there was a multitude of officials quite comparable to the tail of useless boot-lickers who adorned the court of Louis XIV; but one imagines that, in earlier days at least, the courtier of Pharaoh had to do more for his position than the hanger-on of the Grand Monarque.