ou
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 v