Unfortunately, all the Egyptian laws have not come down to us, and we have to resort to the incomplete testimony of Herodotus and Diodorus. But, as M. de Bonald states, it is easy to recognize the general spirit of this legislation, which constantly contributed to stability by the maintenance of ancient customs, evidently borrowed from patriarchal traditions, and by the widest application of the hereditary principle extending to every grade of society. The details we have given concerning the constitution of the family and about property, the distinction between the sacerdotal, military, agricultural, and working classes, as well as concerning royalty, appear sufficient to give the reader an approximate idea of the 73 civil and political laws of the ancient Egyptian monarchy. No trace has yet been found of the municipal rights in ancient Egypt, but there is reason to believe that cities as powerful as Thebes, Memphis, Elephantine, Tanis, etc., had institutions suited to the genius of their inhabitants. Each dynasty took for its capital the city from which it sprang. Thus the two first dynasties established the seat of government at Thinis and Memphis; the fifth at Elephantine; and the sixth at Memphis. Thebes only became the capital from the time of the eleventh dynasty.[24] Owing to this excellent custom, no city, under the ancient monarchy, could preserve its ascendency and attract all the sources of power in the country. Thinis, Memphis, Elephantine, Thebes, Tanis, Saïs, etc., were by turns the capitals of the kingdom, the centres of national activity, and the seats of sovereign power. As to the financial laws, history has transmitted several the wisdom of which makes us regret the more those that have not come down to us. The object of the first was to proscribe idleness, which the Egyptians rightly regarded as a social evil. “Amasis,” says Herodotus, “is the author of the law which obliges every Egyptian to show annually to the governor of his _nome_ (province) his means of subsistence, and they who did not obey, or did not appear to live on legitimate resources, were punished with death. Solon, the Athenian, having borrowed this law from the Egyptians, imposed it on his fellow-citizens, who still observe it and think it faultless.”