“My father!”

“Thou desirest the ruin of this man, because he hindered thee from taking forcible possession of the granddaughter of Rhodopis, and because thine own incapacity moved me to place him in thy room as commander of the troops.  Ah! thou growest pale!  Verily, I owe Phanes thanks for confiding to me your vile intentions, and so enabling me to bind my friends and supporters, to whom Rhodopis is precious, more firmly to my throne.”

“And is it thus thou speakest of these strangers, my father? dost thou thus forget the ancient glory of Egypt?  Despise me, if thou wilt; I know thou lovest me not; but say not that to be great we need the help of strangers!  Look back on our history!  Were we not greatest when our gates were closed to the stranger, when we depended on ourselves and our own strength, and lived according to the ancient laws of our ancestors and our gods?  Those days beheld the most distant lands subjugated by Rameses, and heard Egypt celebrated in the whole world as its first and greatest nation.  What are we now?  The king himself calls beggars and foreigners the supporters of his throne, and devises a petty stratagem to secure the friendship of a power over whom we were victorious before the Nile was infested by these strangers.  Egypt was then a mighty Queen in glorious apparel; she is now a painted woman decked out in tinsel!”

[Rameses the Great, son of Sethos, reigned over Egypt 1394-1328 B. C. He was called Sesostris by the Greeks; see Lepsius (Chron. d.  Aegypter, p. 538.) on the manner in which this confusion of names arose.  Egypt attained the zenith of her power under this king, whose army, according to Diodorus (I. 53-58). consisted of 600,000 foot and 24,000 horsemen, 27,000 chariots and 400 ships of war.  With these hosts he subdued many of the Asiatic and African nations, carving his name and likeness, as trophies of victory, on the rocks of the conquered countries.  Herodotus speaks of having seen two of these inscriptions himself (II. 102-106.) and two are still to be found not far from Bairut.  His conquests brought vast sums of tribute into Egypt.  Tacitus annal.  II. 60. and these enabled him to erect magnificent buildings in the whole length of his land from Nubia to Tanis, but more especially in Thebes, the city in which he resided.  One of the obelisks erected by Rameses at Heliopolis is now standing in the Place de la Concorde at Paris, and has been lately translated by E. Chabas.  On the walls of the yet remaining palaces and temples, built under this mighty king, we find, even to this day, thousands of pictures representing himself, his armed hosts, the many nations subdued by the power of his arms, and the divinities to whose favor he believed these victories were owing.  Among the latter Ammon and Bast seem to have received his especial veneration, and, on the other hand, we read in these inscriptions that the gods were very willing to grant the wishes of their favorite.