his time each sacred bull had its separate tomb in a quarter of the Memphite Necropolis known to the Greeks as the Serapeion.  The tomb was a small cone-roofed building erected on a square base, and containing only one chamber.  Khamoisit substituted for this a rock-tomb similar to those used by ordinary individuals.  He had a tunnel cut in the solid rock to a depth of about a hundred yards, and on either side of this a chamber was prepared for each Apis on its death, the masons closing up the wall after the installation of the mummy.  His regency had lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, when, the burden of government becoming too much for him, he was succeeded in the LVth year of Ramses by his younger brother Minephtah, who was like himself a son of Isitnofrit.* Minephtah acted, during the first twelve years of his rule, for his father, who, having now almost attained the age of a hundred, passed peacefully away at Thebes in the LXVIII year of his reign, full of days and sated with glory.** He became the subject of legend almost before he had closed his eyes upon the world.

     * Minephtah was in the order of birth the thirteenth son of
     Ramses II.

     ** A passage on a stele of Ramses IV. formally attributes to
     him a reign of sixty-seven years.  I procured at Koptos a
     stele of his year LXVI.

[Illustration:  245.jpg THE CHAPEL OF THE APIS OF AMEKOTHES III.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Mariette.

He had obtained brilliant successes during his life, and the scenes describing them were depicted in scores of places.  Popular fancy believed everything which he had related of himself, and added to this all that it knew of other kings, thus making him the Pharaoh of Pharaohs—­the embodiment of all preceding monarchs.  Legend preferred to recall him by the name Sesusu, Sesusturi—­a designation which had been applied to him by his contemporaries, and he thus became better known to moderns as Sesostris than by his proper name Ramses Miamun.*

* This designation, which is met with at Medinet-Habu and in the Anmtasi Papyrus I., was shown by E. de Rouge to refer to Ramses II.; the various readings Sesu, Sesusu, Sesusturi, explain the different forms Sesosis, Sesoosis, Sesostris.  Wiedemann saw in this name the mention of a king of the XVIIIth dynasty not yet classified.

According to tradition, he was at first sent to Ethiopia with a fleet of four hundred ships, by which he succeeded in conquering the coasts of the Red Sea as far as the Indus.  In later times several stelae in the cinnamon country were ascribed to him.  He is credited after this with having led into the east a great army, with which he conquered Syria, Media, Persia, Bactriana, and India as far as the ocean; and with having on his return journey through the deserts of Scythia reached the Don [Tanais], where, on the shore of the Masotic Sea, he left a number of his soldiers, whose descendants afterwards peopled Colchis.  It was even alleged that he had ventured into Europe, but that the lack of provisions and the inclemency of the climate had prevented him from advancing further than Thrace.