Sura, the first of these viceroys whose name has reached us, was in office at the beginning of the campaign of the year III.* He belonged, it would seem, to a Theban family, and for several centuries afterwards his successors are mentioned among the nobles who were in the habit of attending the court. Their powers were considerable: they commanded armies, built or restored temples, administered justice, and received the homage of loyal sheikhs or the submission of rebellious ones.** The period for which they were appointed was not fixed by law, and they held office simply at the king's pleasure. During the XIXth dynasty it was usual to confer this office, the highest in the state, on a son of the sovereign, preferably the heir-apparent. Occasionally his appointment was purely formal, and he continued in attendance on his father, while a trusty substitute ruled in his place: often, however, he took the government on himself, and in the regions of the Upper Nile served an apprenticeship to the art of ruling. * He is mentioned in the Sehel inscriptions as "the royal son Sura." Nahi, who had been regarded as the first holder of the office, and who was still in office under Thutmosis III., had been appointed by Thutmosis I., but after Sura. ** Under Thutmosis III., the viceroy Nahi restored the temple at Semneh; under Tutankhamon, the viceroy Hui received tribute from the Ethiopian princes, and presented them to the sovereign. [Illustration: 336.jpg A CITY OF MODERN NUBIA--THE ANCIENT DONGOLA] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Insinger. This district was in a perpetual state of war--a war without danger, but full of trickery and surprises: here he prepared himself for the larger arena of the Syrian campaigns, learning the arts of generalship more perfectly than was possible in the manouvres of the parade-ground. Moreover, the appointment was dictated by religious as well as by political considerations. The presumptive heir to the throne was to his father what Horus had been to Osiris--his lawful successor, or, if need be, his avenger, should some act of treason impose on him the duty of vengeance: and was it not in Ethiopia that Horus had gained his first victories over Typhon? To begin like Horus, and flesh his maiden steel on the descendants of the accomplices of Sit, was, in the case of the future sovereign, equivalent to affirming from the outset the reality of his divine extraction.* * In the _Orbiney Papyrus_ the title of "Prince of Kush" was assigned to the heir-presumptive to the throne.