The country was no doubt frequently broken up into a dozen or more independent states, each possessing its own kings during several generations; but the annalists had from the outset discarded these collateral lines, and recognized only one legitimate dynasty, of which the rest were but vassals. Their theory of legitimacy does not always agree with actual history, and the particular line of princes which they rejected as usurpers represented at times the only family possessing true rights to the crown.[*] * It is enough to give two striking examples of this. The royal lists of the time of the Ramessides suppress, at the end of the XVIIIth dynasty, Amenothes IV. and several of his successors, and give the following sequence--Amenothes III., Harmhabit, Ramses I., without any apparent hiatus; Manetho, on the contrary, replaces the kings who were omitted, and keeps approximately to the real order between Horos (Amenothes III.) and Armais (Harmhabit). Again, the official tradition of the XXth dynasty gives, between Ramses II. and Ramses III., the sequence--Minephtah, Seti IL, Nakht-Seti; Manetho, on the other hand, gives Amenemes followed by Thuoris, who appear to correspond to the Amenmeses and Siphtah of contemporary monuments, but, after Minephtah, he omits Seti II. and Nakhitou-Seti, the father of Ramses III. In Egypt, as elsewhere, the official chroniclers were often obliged to accommodate the past to the exigencies of the present, and to manipulate the annals to suit the reigning party; while obeying their orders the chroniclers deceived posterity, and it is only by a rare chance that we can succeed in detecting them in the act of falsification, and can re-establish the truth. [Illustration: 325.jpg TABLE OF THE KINGS]