After the death of Hatshopsitu, the young Pharaoh set out with his army.  It was at the beginning of the twenty-fourth year of his reign that he reached Gaza.  Marching forward he reached the spurs of Mount Carmel and won a decisive victory at Megiddo over the allied Syrian princes.  The inscriptions at Karnak contain long lists of the titles of the king’s Syrian subjects.  The Pharaoh had now no inclination to lay down his arms, and we have a record of twelve military expeditions of this king.  When the Syrian conquest had been effected, Egypt gave permanency to its results by means of a series of international decrees, which established the constitution of her empire, and brought about her concerted action with the Asiatic powers.  She had already occupied an important position among them when Thutmosis III. died in the fifty-fifth year of his reign.

Of his successors the most prosperous was the renowned Amenothes III., who is immortalised by the wonderful monumental relics of his long and peaceful reign.  Amenothes devoted immense energy to the building of temples, palaces and shrines, and gave very little of his time to war.

IV.—­The Last Days of the Theban Empire

When the male line failed, there was no lack of princesses in Egypt, of whom any one who happened to come to the throne might choose a consort after her own heart, and thus become the founder of a new dynasty.  By such a chance alliance Harmhabi, himself a descendant of Thutmosis III., was raised to the kingly office as first Pharaoh of the XIXth Dynasty.  He displayed great activity both within Egypt and beyond it, conducting mighty building enterprises and also undertaking expeditions against recalcitrant tribes along the Upper Nile.

Rameses I., who succeeded Harmhabi, was already an old man at his accession.  He reigned only six or seven years, and associated his son, Seti I., with himself in the government from his second year of power.  No sooner had Seti celebrated his father’s obsequies than he set out for war against Southern Syria, then in open revolt.  He captured Hebron, marched to Gaza, and then northward to Lebanon, where he received the homage of the Phoenicians, and returned in triumph to Egypt, bringing troops of captives.

By Seti I. were built the most wonderful of the halls at Karaak and Luxor, which render his name for ever illustrious.  He associated with him his son, still very young, who became renowned as Ramses II., one of the greatest warriors and builders amongst all the rulers of Egypt The monuments and temples erected by this king also are among the wonders of the world.  He married a Hittite princess when he was more than sixty.  This alliance secured a long period of peace and prosperity.  Syria once more breathed freely, her commerce being under the combined protection of the two Powers who shared her territory.