Thebes; but as the removal of the seat of government to the Delta caused the loss and separation of the southern provinces, so its sudden return to the extreme south, with a temporary sojourn at Napata, necessarily produced a similar effect, and led to the speedy secession of the northern provinces. In either case, the dynasty placed at one extremity of the empire was unable to sustain for any length of time the weight depending on it at the other; when once the balance became even slightly disturbed, it could not regain its equilibrium, and there was consequently a sudden dislocation of the machinery of government. The triumph of the Saite dynasty accomplished the final ruin of the work begun under the Papis, and brought to completion by the Amenemhaits and the Usirtasens. Greater Egypt ceased to exist, after more than twenty centuries of glorious life, and was replaced by the Little Egypt of the first ages of history. The defeat of the military chiefs of the north, the annexation of the principality of Amon, and the final expulsion of the Ethiopians and the Asiatics had occupied scarcely nine years, but these feats constituted only the smaller part of the work Psammetichus had to accomplish: his subsequent task lay in restoring prosperity to his kingdom, or, at all events, in raising it from the state of misery into which two centuries of civil wars and invasions had plunged it. The important cities had suffered grievously: Memphis had been besieged and taken by assault by both Pionkhi and Esar-haddon, Thebes had been twice sacked by the veterans of Assur-bani-pal, and from Syene to Pelusium there was not a township but had suffered at the hands of foreigners or of the Egyptians themselves. The country had enjoyed a moment's breathing-space under Sabaco, but the little good which this prince had been able to accomplish was effaced immediately after his death: the canals and dykes had been neglected, the supervision of the police relaxed, and the population, periodically decimated or driven to take refuge in the strongholds, had often allowed the lands to lie waste, so that famine had been superadded to the other evils under which the land already groaned. Psammetichus, having forced the feudal lords to submit to his supremacy, deprived them of the royal titles they had unduly assumed; he no longer tolerated their habits of private warfare, but restricted them to the functions of hereditary governors, which their ancestors had exercised under the conquering dynasties of former times,* and this enforced peace soon allowed the rural population to devote themselves joyfully to their regular occupations.