Its colleges of priests had collected, condensed, and arranged the
principal myths of the local regions; the Ennead to which it gave
conception would never have obtained the popularity which we must
acknowledge it had, if its princes had not exercised, for at least some
period, an actual suzerainty over the neighboring plains. It was around
Heliopolis that the kingdom of Lower Egypt was organized; everything
there bore traces of Heliopolitan theories--the protocol of the kings,
their supposed descent from Ra, and the enthusiastic worship which they
offered to the sun.

The Delta, owing to its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited
for government from one centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow,
tortuous, and stretching like a thin strip on either bank of the river,
did not lend itself to so complete a unity. It, too, represented a
single kingdom, having the reed and the lotus for its emblems; but its
component parts were more loosely united, its religion was less
systematized, and it lacked a well-placed city to serve as a political
and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained schools of theologians who
certainly played an important part in the development of myths and
dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was never widely felt.

In the south, Siut disputed their supremacy, and Heracleopolis stopped
their road to the north. These three cities thwarted and neutralized one
another, and not one of them ever succeeded in obtaining a lasting
authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two kingdoms had its own natural
advantages and its system of government, which gave to it a peculiar
character, and stamped it, as it were, with a distinct personality down
to its latest days. The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more powerful,
richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more active and