In establishing the cities of refuge, therefore, the Israelites did but carry on the traditions of the past. And two at least of the cities, which were subsequently set apart for the purpose, were sanctuaries, and consequently ‘asyla,’ long before the children of Jacob entered Palestine. These were Kadesh in Galilee and Hebron (Josh. xx. 7). The name of Kadesh declares its sacred character, and the sanctuary of Hebron had been famous for centuries. The institution of the Levitical cities, again, was a result of the new position assigned to the tribe of Levi as the priests and representatives of the national God. The overthrow of the Midianites and their Israelitish allies had definitely settled the place of the tribe in Israel. Yahveh had prevailed over all other gods, and those who worshipped another god had been put to the sword. It had been the work of Levi, of those who had been chosen to be the ministers of Yahveh or had voluntarily devoted themselves to the service of the sanctuary. On the day that the spoil of Midian was divided it was recognised that Levi was not a tribe in the sense that the other tribes were so; it represented the priests and ministers of Yahveh, whoever and wheresoever they might be. And as, in the division of the spoil, due care was taken of Yahveh and His priests, so, too, in the division of the land, it was needful that similar care should be taken for them. The priests of Egypt had their lands, out of the revenues of which the temples were supported, and Egypt was not the only country of the Oriental world in which the same practice prevailed. Indeed, while Canaan was an Egyptian province temples had been built in it by the Pharaohs, and doubtless endowed in the same way as the temples of Egypt itself. The revenues of Syrian towns, moreover, had been given to Egyptian temples; Thothmes III., for example, immediately after the conquest of Syria, settled three of its towns (Anaugas, Innuam, and Harankal) upon Amon of Thebes.[246] The custom lingered on into late times; the Persian king assigned the three cities of Magnesia, Myos, and Lampsacus for the maintenance of Themistoklês,[247] and the taxes of the Fayyûm in Egypt formed the ‘pin-money’ of Queen Arsinoê Philadelphos.[248]