seize the royal authority on the monarch's demise. If Ramesses III. died
without issue, his task must have been facilitated; at any rate, he
seems to have had the skill to accomplish it without struggle or
disturbance; and if, as some suppose, he banished the remaining
descendants of Ramesses III. to the Great Oasis, at any rate he did not
stain his priestly hands with bloodshed, or force his way to the throne
through scenes of riot and confusion. Egypt, so far as appears, quietly
acquiesced in his rule, and perhaps rejoiced to find herself once more
governed by a prince of a strong and energetic nature.

For some time after he had mounted the throne, Herhor did not abandon
his priestly functions. He bore the title of High-Priest of Ammon
regularly on one of his royal escutcheons, while on the other he called
himself "Her-Hor Si-Ammon," or "Her-Hor, son of Ammon," following the
example of former kings, who gave themselves out for sons of Ra, or
Phthah, or Mentu, or Horus. But ultimately he surrendered the priestly
title to his eldest son, Piankh, and no doubt at the same time devolved
upon him the duties which attached to the high-priestly office. There
was something unseemly in a priest being a soldier, and Herhor was
smitten with the ambition of putting himself at the head of an army, and
reasserting the claim of Egypt to a supremacy over Syria. He calls
himself "the conqueror of the Ruten," and there is no reason to doubt
that he was successful in a Syrian campaign, though to what distance he
penetrated must remain uncertain. The Egyptian monarchs are not very
exact in their geographical nomenclature, and Herhor may have spoken of
Ruten, when his adversaries were really the Bedouins of the desert
between Egypt and Palestine. The fact that his expedition is unnoticed
in the Hebrew Scriptures renders it tolerably certain that he did not
effect any permanent conquest, even of Palestine.