This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris, showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline.  He accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and exposure to danger.  With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions.  Rameses first subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian monarchy.  While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency.  He then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven thousand war-chariots.  It is difficult to understand how a small country like Egypt could furnish such an immense force.  If the account of the historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers.  He subjected his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to orders,—­the first principle in the science of war, which no successful general in the world’s history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to Napoleon.  With this powerful army his march was irresistible.  Ethiopia was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute of gold, ivory, and ebony.  In those ancient times a conquering army did not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the people.  Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.  After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating career until he reached Thrace.  From thence he marched to Asia Minor, conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the throne of Ninus and Semiramis.  Then, laden with booty from the Eastern world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which for magnitude have never been surpassed.  Thus was Egypt enriched with the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years.  Rameses was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown, or sought glory in distant expeditions.

We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals who served under Rameses.  There is doubtless some exaggeration in the statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.