ses, or Remeses-mi-amun*, and was reputed to be the famous Sesostris of antiquity. The origin of the confusion regarding Sesostris may perhaps be explained. He is mentioned by Manetho in the 12th Dynasty, and Herodotus learned that he preceded the builders of the pyramids: I therefore suppose that Sesostris was an ancient king famed for his exploits, and the hero of early Egyptian history; but that after Remeses had surpassed them, and become the favourite of his country, the renown and name of the former monarch were transferred to the more conspicuous hero of a later age; and it is remarkable that when Germanicus went to Egypt, the Thebans did not mention Sesostris, but Rhamses, as the king who had performed the glorious actions ascribed in olden times to their great conqueror. Nothing, however, can justify the supposition that Sesostris, or, as Diodorus calls him, Sesoosis, is the Shishak of Scripture.

The reign of Remeses was conspicuous as the Augustine era of Egypt, when the arts attained a degree of perfection which no after age succeeded in imitating †, and the arms of Egypt were ex

could only be of very short duration. It is to be hoped that time and future discoveries will settle the question.

I have noticed the synonymous use of these titles, Amun-mai and Mai-amun (Mi-amun), in the names of Remeses III. and others, when written horizontally and vertically.

The head now in the British Museum, and erroneously called of the Young Memnon, is of Remeses II. We smile at the name young applied to a statue because it was smaller than a colossus in the same temple; a distinction formerly adopted at the Louvre, where a statue was called le jeune Apollon, because it had not yet attained the size of the Belvedere.

tended by this prince considerably farther into the heart of Asia than during the most successful invasions of his predecessors. He had no sooner ascended the throne than he zealously devoted himself to military affairs; and we find that in his fourth year he had already waged a successful war against several distant nations.* His march lay along the coast of Palestine, and the record of that event is still preserved on the rocks of the Lycus near Beiróot, where his name and figure present the singular circumstance of a Pharaonic monument without the confines of Egypt. But that this nation extended its arms and dominion far beyond the valley of the Nile, is abundantly proved by the monuments and by Scripture history, and some of their northern possessions were retained by the Egyptians until Nebuchadnezer king of Babylon took from Pharaoh Neco all that belonged to him, "from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt."+ From Syria their march probably extended towards the N. E.; but I do not pretend to decide the exact nations they invaded, or the names of the people over whom the victories of the great Remeses are recorded on the walls of the Memnonium.‡ M. Champollion sup

* Vide my Egypt and Thebes, p. 193.

+2 Kings, xxiv. 7. This river of Egypt is not the Nile, but the "rivulet" or torrent of Egypt;" and is mentioned by Joshua (xv. 4.) as the boundary line, a little to the south of the modern Gaza (Ghuzzeh). (nahl) is a rivulet, and not a river, as some have supposed, which is (nahr), as in Arabic. Much less is nahl related to the Nile. Neco also "went up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates." 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. For the first copy of the name of Remeses on the Lycus we are indebted to Mr. Wyse. Strabo (lib. xvii.) says, "The rule of the Egyptians extended into Scythia, Bactria, India, and what is now called lonia."

I use this name for the palace-temple of Remeses II., because it is better known than any other.

poses them the Scythians, and perhaps the hieroglyphics may admit of such a reading; but let it suffice for the present that they were a northern nation, skilful in the art of war, and possessing strong towns and a country traversed by a large river. Indeed, from their general appearance and the mode of fortifying their towns, we may conclude them to have been far above the level of a barbarous state; and the double fosses that surrounded their walls, the bridges* over them, and the mode of drawing up their phalanxes of infantry, suggest a considerable advancement in civilisation, and the art of war. Their offensive and defensive arms, consisting of spears and swords, helmets, shields †, and coats of mail, were light and effective; and two-horsed chariots, containing each three men, formed a well constituted and powerful body of troops. Some fought on horses, which they guided by a bridle, without saddles‡; but the far greater part in cars; and these instances of the use of the horse seem to be introduced to show a peculiarity of Asiatic people.

I do not find the Egyptians thus represented; and though it is probable they had cavalry as well as chariots, mention being made of it in ancient authors, the custom of employing large bodies of * As they are seen from above, it is not possible to ascertain how they were constructed.

In form bearing a slight resemblance to the Theban Greek buckler.
The Numidian cavalry had neither.

We read of the Egyptian horsemen in Isaiah, xxxvi. 9., "put thy trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen;" and in Miriam's Song, "the horse and his rider." Exod. xv. 21. Shishak had with him 1200 chariots and 60,000 horsemen. 2 Chron. xii. 3. Vide my Egypt and Thebes, p. 194. note.

horsemen does not appear to have been so usual in Egypt as in some Eastern countries. *

The Egyptian cars contained but two persons†, the warrior and his charioteer; and to the great number of their chariots, and their skill in archery, may be attributed the brilliant successes of this people in a long suite of wars waged against populous nations: and it is remarkable that their mode of drawing the bow was similar to that of our ancestors, who, for the glorious victories they obtained over armies far exceeding them in numerical force, were principally indebted to their dexterity in the use of this arm.

Great light is thrown on the mode of warfare at this early period, by the sculptures of the Memnonium, where a very satisfactory representation is introduced of the scaling ladder and testudo‡; and it is highly probable that the Egyptians, accustomed as they were to subterraneous excavations, adopted the latter as coverts while mining the besieged towns, as well as for facilitating the approach of their men. Indeed, since they are not formed of shields, but of a covering of framework supported by poles, and are unaccompanied, in this instance, by the battering-ram, we may conclude that the men posted beneath them were

* Homer's heroes are also mounted in cars. He mentions one cavalier (Iliad, vi. 684.) using two horses. The Greeks did not employ much cavalry till after the Persian war.

The Indian chariots, according to Megasthenes, contained each two persons, besides the charioteer. Vide infrà, on the Castes, in chap. iii.

It was already in use 400 years before this period, in the reign of Osirtasen I., as well as a sort of battering ram. The Aries, or Ram, is said by Vitruvius to have been invented by the Carthaginians at the siege of Gades. lib. x. 19.

so employed, especially as they appear, in no ostensible manner, to be connected with the fight.* In some instances, however, they served as a cover to those who directed the ram† against the walls, and were then very similar in use and principle to the testudo arietaria of the Romans.

The wars and successes of the great Remeses are again recorded on the walls of Karnak, and in the temples of Nubia; and the number of nations he subdued, and the extent of his arms in the north and south, are the subjects of many historical pictures. The Egyptians had already formed alliances with some of the nations they subdued, and the auxiliary troops enrolled in their army assisted in extending the conquests of the Pharaohs. Their principal allies, at this period, were the Shairetana, a maritime people, and the same who afterwards continued to assist the Egyptians in the time of Remeses III. Other alliances were also formed by the last-mentioned monarch, many distant tribes were subdued by him, and the reigns of Osirei and the second and third Remeses appear to have been the most remarkable for the extent of foreign conquest.

According to Herodotus, Sesostris ‡, whom I as

*The wooden horse is, perhaps, the first hint of a mine in ancient history. Remeses II. lived about 150 years before the taking of Troy. + Their ram was a long pike armed with a metal point, by which they loosened the stones of the wall: the terebra of the Romans, and the τρυπανον of the Greeks.

Sesostris, or Sesoosis, according to Diodorus, during his father's reign, had led an expedition into Arabia, as well as Libya; and we may, perhaps, trace some indication of this fact in the sculptures of Karnak, where the son of Osirei returns from the war with his father. Diod. i. 53. Can Ses-Osirei, or Se-Osirei, the "son of Osirei," bear any relation to the name of Sesostris ?