As soon as a vacancy occurred in the succession either in Syria or in Ethiopia, the Pharaoh would choose from among the members of the family whom he held in reserve, that prince on whose loyalty he could best count, and placed him upon the throne.* The method of procedure was not always successful, since these princes, whom one would have supposed from their training to have been the least likely to have asserted themselves against the man to whom they owed their elevation, often gave more trouble than others. The sense of the supreme power of Egypt, which had been inculcated in them during their exile, seemed to be weakened after their return to their native country, and to give place to a sense of their own importance. Their hearts misgave them as the time approached for them to send their own children as pledges to their suzerain, and also when called upon to transfer a considerable part of their revenue to his treasury. They found, moreover, among their own cities and kinsfolk, those who were adverse to the foreign yoke, and secretly urged their countrymen to revolt, or else competitors for the throne who took advantage of the popular discontent to pose as champions of national independence, and it was difficult for the vassal prince to counteract the intrigues of these adversaries without openly declaring himself hostile to his foreign master.** * Among the Tel el-Amarna tablets there is a letter of a petty Syrian king, Adadnirari, whose father was enthroned after a fashion in Nukhassi by Thutmosis III. ** Thus, in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, Zimrida, governor of Sidon, gives information to Amenothes III. on the intrigues which the notables of the town were concocting against Egyptian authority. Ribaddu relates in one of these despatches that the notables of Byblos and the women of his harem were urging him to revolt; later, a letter of Amunira to the King of Egypt informs us that Ribaddu had been driven from Byblos by his own brother.