While this lavish wealth overflowed the coffers of the temples, we find the workmen in the service of the government, laboring in the City of the Dead--the Necropolis--having to resort to strikes, or in older phraseology, "having to lie at home," because their monthly rations were not forthcoming. The revenue of the government had, apparently, become the spoils for corrupt officials who sought to increase their personal incomes at the expense of the public treasury. Repeatedly starving laborers left their work and started with their families to leave Thebes, whereupon part of their rations would be given them and they would be urged to continue at their tasks! Nor was this all. Records have come down to us of bands of robbers who made a profession of rifling tombs of the dead. Worse still, cases for trial were frequently dismissed because officials themselves and priests of lesser position were sharing in the booty! Some of the Ramessides removed their ancestors from the original tombs and had all placed in a shaft where guards could keep watch over them. It was next to impossible to protect the wide-reaching City of the Dead, but it was worse than useless to attempt such a thing when those supposed to lend protection were themselves participating in the robberies. After the death of Ramses III., his descendants to the number of ten succeeded him. Then the High Priest of Amon snatched the power from Ramses XIII., taking the title of king as well as the authority which he already held. For some time the kings had been practically subservient to him. For almost a hundred and fifty years priests ruled in Egypt.[6] Under priestly rule the government was quite as corrupt as it had been previously. Discontent on the part of the workmen, bold robberies of tombs, were the order of the day. First Libyan, then Ethiopian chiefs gained possession of the throne. The country fell apart; the days of Egypt's glory were gone. From this time forward her political power was at an end. To be sure, Ethiopian kings took on Egyptian civilization--as a matter of fact, their country had long been Egyptianized. They tried to rule as pharaohs before them had done, worshipping Egyptian gods and keeping temples in repair. To the average citizen, life was no doubt much as it had been in former periods. But the old ideas were steadily falling away. The Assyrians invaded the country, and later, the Persians under Cambyses conquered it. Now and then a native prince would temporarily get control and repulse the Libyans and Ethiopians on the west and Asiatic peoples on the east. Such reactions and returns to the old order were short-lived, and like the sudden glow of dying embers, bespoke an approaching end.