Edwards, Amelia B.: A thousand miles up the Nile (New York, [1888])

BAMESES THE GREAT. 257

depicted under the twofold aspect of royalty and divinity—
Rameses the Pharaoh burning incense before Barneses the
Deity.

For the rest, it is safe to conclude that he was neither
bettor nor worse than the general run of oriental despots—
that he was ruthless in war, prodigal in peace, rapacious of
booty and unsparing in the exercise of almost boundless
power. Such pride and such despotism were, however, in
strict accordance with immemorial precedent and with
the temper of the age in which he lived. The Egyptians
would seem beyond all doubt to have believed that their
king was always in some sense divine. They wrote hymns*
and offered up prayers to him, and regarded him as the
living representative of deity. His princes and ministers
habitually addressed him in the language of worship.
Even his wives, who ought to have known better, are repre-
sented in the performance of acts of religious adoration be-
fore him. What wonder, then, if the man so deified be-
lieved himself a god?

* See Ili/mii to Pha/raoh (Meneptkah), translated bv C. W. Good-
v'\J, M. A. " Records of the Past," vol. vi, p. 101.