DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0254
236 A THOUSAND MILJSS UP THE NUM.
CHAPTER XV.
RAMESES THE GREAT.
The central figure of Egyptian history has always been,
probably always will be, Eameses II. He holds this place
partly by right, partly by accident. He was born to great-
ness; he achieved greatness ; and he had borrowed great-
ness thrust upon him. It was his singular destiny not
only to be made a posthumous usurper of glory, but to he
forgotten by his own name and remembered in a variety of
aliases. As Sesoosis, as Osymandias, as Sesostris, he
became credited in course of time with all the deeds of all
the heroes of the new empire, beginning with Thothmes III,
who preceded him by three hundred years, and ending with
Sheshonk, the captor of Jerusalem, who lived four centuries
after him. Modern science, however, has repaired this
injustice; and, while disclosing the long-lost names of a
brilliant succession of sovereigns, has enabled us to ascribe
to each the honors which are his due. We know now that
some of these were greater conquerors than Rameses II.
"We suspect that some were better rulers. Yet the popu-
lar hero keeps his ground. What he has lost by interpre-
tation on the one hand, he has gained by interpretation on
the other; and the beau saireurol the " Third SallierPapy-
rns" remains to this day the representative Pharaoh of a
line of monarchs whose history covers a space of fifty cent-
uries, and whose frontiers reached at one time from
Mesopotamia to the ends of the Soudan.
The interest that one takes in Rameses II begins at
Memphis and goes on increasing all the way up the river.
It is a purely living, a purely personal interest; such as one
feels in Athens for Pericles, or in Florence for Lorenzo the
Magnificent. Other Pharaohs but languidly affect the
imagination. Thothmes and Amenhotep are to us as Da-
rius or Artaxei'xes—shadows that come and go in the dis-
tance. But with he second Rameses we are on terms of re-
CHAPTER XV.
RAMESES THE GREAT.
The central figure of Egyptian history has always been,
probably always will be, Eameses II. He holds this place
partly by right, partly by accident. He was born to great-
ness; he achieved greatness ; and he had borrowed great-
ness thrust upon him. It was his singular destiny not
only to be made a posthumous usurper of glory, but to he
forgotten by his own name and remembered in a variety of
aliases. As Sesoosis, as Osymandias, as Sesostris, he
became credited in course of time with all the deeds of all
the heroes of the new empire, beginning with Thothmes III,
who preceded him by three hundred years, and ending with
Sheshonk, the captor of Jerusalem, who lived four centuries
after him. Modern science, however, has repaired this
injustice; and, while disclosing the long-lost names of a
brilliant succession of sovereigns, has enabled us to ascribe
to each the honors which are his due. We know now that
some of these were greater conquerors than Rameses II.
"We suspect that some were better rulers. Yet the popu-
lar hero keeps his ground. What he has lost by interpre-
tation on the one hand, he has gained by interpretation on
the other; and the beau saireurol the " Third SallierPapy-
rns" remains to this day the representative Pharaoh of a
line of monarchs whose history covers a space of fifty cent-
uries, and whose frontiers reached at one time from
Mesopotamia to the ends of the Soudan.
The interest that one takes in Rameses II begins at
Memphis and goes on increasing all the way up the river.
It is a purely living, a purely personal interest; such as one
feels in Athens for Pericles, or in Florence for Lorenzo the
Magnificent. Other Pharaohs but languidly affect the
imagination. Thothmes and Amenhotep are to us as Da-
rius or Artaxei'xes—shadows that come and go in the dis-
tance. But with he second Rameses we are on terms of re-