This policy must have been due to a presentiment of danger from the side of Egypt, or to the inception of a great scheme for attacking the reigning Pharaoh. After the defeat of his generals at Altaku, Shabitoku had made no further attempt to take the offensive; his authority over the feudal nobility of Egypt was so widely acknowledged that it causes us no surprise to meet with his cartouches on more than one ruin between Thebes and Memphis,* but his closing years were marred by misfortune. There was then living at Napata a certain Taharqa, one of those scions of the solar race who enjoyed the title of "Royal brothers," and from among whom Anion of the Holy Mountain was wont to choose his representative to reign over the land of Ethiopia whenever the throne became vacant. It does not appear that the father of Taharqa ever held the highest rank; it was from his mother, Akaluka, that he inherited his pretensions to the crown, and through her probably that he traced his descent from the family of the high priests. Tradition asserts that he did not gain the regal power without a struggle; having been proclaimed king in Ethiopia at the age of twenty, as the result of some revolution, he is said to have marched against Shabitoku, and, coming up with him in the Delta, to have defeated him, taken him prisoner, and put him to death.** These events took place about 693 B.C.,*** and Taharqa employed the opening years of his reign in consolidating his authority over the double kingdom. * His name or monuments of his erection have been discovered at Karnak. ** Eusebius, who cites the fact, had his information from a trustworthy Greek source, perhaps from Manetho himself. The inscription of Tanis seems to say that Taharqa was twenty years old at the time of his revolt. *** Most of the lists of kings taken from Manetho assign twelve years to the reign of Sebikhos; one alone, that of Africanus, assigns him fourteen years. He married the widow of Sabaco, Queen Dikahitamanu, and thus assumed the guardianship of Tanuatamanu, her son by her first husband, and this marriage secured him supreme authority in Ethiopia.* That he regarded Egypt as a conquered country can no longer be doubted, seeing that he inserted its name on his monuments among those of the nations which he had vanquished. * The text of several documents only mentioned that Tanuata- manu was the "son of his wife," which Opport interpreted to mean son of Taharqa himself, while others see in him a son of Kashto, a brother of Amenertas, or a son of Shabitoku. [Illustration: 139.jpg TAHARQA AND HIS QUEEN DIKAHITAMANU] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured plate in Lepsius.