But generally he bore a title appropriate to the nature of the god whose servant he was. The chief priest of Ra at Heliopolis, and in all the cities which adopted the Heliopolitan form of worship, was called _Oiru mau_, the master of visions, and he alone besides the sovereign of the nome, or of Egypt, enjoyed the privilege of penetrating into the sanctuary, of "entering into heaven and there beholding the god" face to face. In the same way, the high priest of Anhuri at Sebennytos was entitled the wise and pure warrior--_ahuiti sau uibu_--because his god went armed with a pike, and a soldier god required for his service a pontiff who should be a soldier like himself. These great personages did not always strictly seclude themselves within the limits of the religious domain. The gods accepted, and even sometimes solicited, from their worshippers, houses, fields, vineyards, orchards, slaves, and fishponds, the produce of which assured their livelihood and the support of their temples. There was no Egyptian who did not cherish the ambition of leaving some such legacy to the patron god of his city, "for a monument to himself," and as an endowment for the priests to institute prayers and perpetual sacrifices on his behalf.[*] In course of time these accumulated gifts at length formed real sacred fiefs--_hotpu-nutir_--analogous to the _wakfs_ of Mussulman Egypt.[**] They were administered by the high priest, who, if necessary, defended them by force against the greed of princes or kings. Two, three, or even four classes of prophets or _heiroduli_ under his orders assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in giving religious instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses they held the chief rank, and were called _hierodules_, or priestesses, _hierodules_ of Nit, _hierodules_ of Hathor, _hierodules_ of Pakhit.[***] * As regards the Saite period, we are beginning to accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or houses, made either by the king or by private individuals. ** We know from the _Great Harris Papyrus_ to what the fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, _Die AEgyptologie_, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, _Bubastis, Eighth Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund_, p. 61, a calculation as to the quantities of precious metals belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis; its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.